January 30, 2006

The Ultimate Test Of a 80's Toyta Pickup. These guys light the truck on fire, drop objects on it, blow up a building with the truck on it, drown it in the ocean, and smash it with a wrecking ball. Amazingly the truck still works. (Embedded video, sound not required, but suggested SFW)
posted by VertexOfLife 18 years ago
  • that was AWESOME the music made it better Holy shit I want that truck pre-skyscraper drop though.
  • Isn't that the same guy from the Lotus (perhaps?) vs. Apache Helicopter short?
  • Music by Ennio Morricone of course.
  • Yes, that's Jeremy Clarkson from the show "Top Gear". There's a bunch more Top Gear vids on google. Fun stuff.
  • Driving the Ariel Atom: Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
  • AWESOME!
  • Maybe the coolest thing I've ever seen.
  • Has anyone else noticed the guy who posted it to google had no idea what it is about besides truck destruction?
  • That's enjoyable. It may not be the only reason US automakers are in such dire straits, but it's one of them. My '92 Celica GT has about 160,000 miles and is still a joy to drive. The brake PADS lasted 148,000 and it's due for it's second timing belt and water pump, but that, oil every 3,000, filters and tires are the ONLY maintenance I've done. It's also a mobile shortwave ham radio station that has worked every continent, save Australia (I've heard them, but VK stations get busy quickly here in North America). I hope it can do another 160K. Prolly won't be blowing up any buildings under it in that pursuit.
  • Great video.. Clarkson is good at this kind of thing, always amusing, doesn't take himself too seriously, seems to have fun.. The kind of guy you wanna hang out with! Thanks for the link...
  • Jackarse.
  • Now, if only they put it on a used-car lot at the end...
  • no idea what it is about besides truck destruction? What could one ask for beyond truck destruction?!?
  • That little truck took a licking and kept on ticking.... By the end I felt a little bit sorry for the thing!
  • The thing that really impressed me about the truck wasn't the fire, or surviving the demolition of the building, or the wrecking ball, tree, or trailer dropped on it, but the fact that it spent 6 hours in the ocean and still started up after just 40 minutes of tinkering!
  • I saw this on Top Gear (everyone knows I'm Top Gear mad) last year -- it was probably one of the highlights of the season, aside from taking a van around some German racetrack in under 10 minutes. And I imagine Jeremy Clarkson would be insufferable in person but he does know his cars.
  • Any one of those tests could have killed the truck: -Leave in ocean longer. -Hit tree dead on instead of off-center. -Drop motor home on it bottom-first. -Hit with wrecking ball at higher speed, with parking brake on so truck doesn't absorb impact by moving. -Leave on fire for longer. -Drop from 250 feet, straight, rather than riding down a building (lessens impact) or leave truck under building when it goes down. However, they didn't do any of this. Of course I'm still impressed at the beating that truck took... in the end, it looked like a car that my brother-in-law had owned for a week. (He's an amazingly bad and careless driver.)
  • My little truck is getting a beating just driving the fifty miles back and forth from Boise. Of course, 85mph doesn't help, gravel from the road sanding *hurts*! I had to wash it today with tons of dishsoap to get the "rust inhibitor" and mag chloride off when I got pinned behind a highway dept. sprayer. "Rust inhibitor" is some kind of crappy oil that DOESN'T wash off well. Actually, I would prefer it not to catch fire, go off a building, etc. Especially with me in it. It's just exciting enough getting to work some days. *sigh*
  • I'm with caution live frogs here. They could have tried harder to kill the truck - set fire to the cab and the truck bed, they could have hit the engine block instead of the tailgate with the wrecking ball, being two ways. Still, they wanted to put together some good television and they certainly did so. And am I the only person who cringed when they ripped a stone out of a city wall with their bad driving?
  • I finally sold my elderly Toyota pickup last year, after driving the hell out of it for 15 years and racking up over 270,000 kms. Despite several winters in the Yukon, washboard roads and a couple of crashes, it still ran like a top. I was sad to see it go but I'm sure it will give the guy who bought it many more years of faithful service. Best damn trucks ever built.
  • Amen to the superiority of foreign design and manufacturing. I've actually been to many factories in the U.S. and with the exception of the faces of those workers focussed on niche products or luxury goods, the despair, oh, it's glorious. Totally fucked.
  • And am I the only person who cringed when they ripped a stone out of a city wall with their bad driving?