Initially a test to see what could be done given source footage only, without any other data being provided, such as camera and lens information, locations, time, etc.
To recreate the environment was a series of deductions. First, we had to determine the location, and our resident Yank Charles helped us identify that it was probably the Colorado River. Although potentially a huge area, we traced to course of the river in Google Maps looking for road crossings, of which there aren't that many. After we had found the exact spot (Hite Crossing Bridge, Utah), we were able to obtain topographical data from a variety of sources enabling us to recreate the surrounding terrain. Matchmove data alongside photographs found online helped us to build a reasonably accurate model of the bridge, and the sun angle could be worked out from the position of the shadows.
Next we obtained a CAD model of the car, and putting it all together we had an accurate facsimile of the real location, into which we could add a different vehicle, in this case a VW Tiguan.
In the recreated CG composite, the car and the bridge are rendered entirely in 3D, and the distant background is a digital matte painting based of frames from the original plate cleaned up and projected on to the terrain geometry.