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What does one say about a clip like this? Besides, perhaps, that I hope you all are enjoying your weekend as much as this guy. Meanwhile, hit the jump for what I believe to be the inspiration for this “project” (if, in fact, it was inspired by more than a bottle of vodka)…
Possibly one of my favorite James Bond car chases, from A View To A Kill, features Bond commandeering a Renault 11 taxi cab, only to have its top and back end end spectacularly (and utterly implausibly) knocked off. Is there an older reference point for this, the most under-appreciated ability of front-drive vehicles? If so, I’m not aware of it… but I bet someone out there is.
The Mythbusters did this as part of the Green Hornet Special a while back.
America’s Funniest Home Videos had a clip like this circa 1991. AVTAK still beats both, though.
I wonder where he put the gas tank. The Mythbusters tested this “myth” a while ago. I think it was one of the movie myth episodes, but I don’t remember which movie they got the idea from. They concluded that you can only keep driving after the back end is lopped off until you run out of gas (i.e. not for very long).
I do remember seeing one of the Herbie movies where Herbie came apart during a race, but it’s not quite the same. The back end can keep going, but the driver/steering rack/pedals are all attached to the front half. The gas tank is in the front too, right? Pretty funny when you’re 5 years old though :)
The gas tank is replaced with a five gallon joint compound bucket with a fuel pump inside of it. This is the famous “Redneck gas tank” created on the Canadian farm in Lucan, Ontario. They used to have half a Pontiac.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is as plausible as that YouTube clip of the crew disassembling a Jeep in 30 seconds and putting it back together in 30 seconds and merrily driving away. Sure. These stunts belong in Shriner parades along with the minature motorcycles and 35 clowns getting out of a VW!
Must be a slow news day – oh wait – it’s Sunday – you’re forgiven!
The maniacal giggle is precious.
It is an under-appreciated atribute of FWD vehicles. I do understand how RWD is superior for performance applications but for Joe and Jane Six-pack FWD has many other advantages. Every winter I’m reminded of the stunt my Dad pulled on me back when I was in college. I was home for Chrismas and a good ole NW Ohio storm had hit our area with blowing and drifting snow followed by a breif sleet storm followed by deep freezing temps to burry the two cars in the driveway to their rear bumpers in snow. The two cars? A 1982 Celebrity and a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (307 V8 posi-trac). Dad throws me the keys to the Cutlass and tells me to free it from the snow bank, he jumps in the Celebrity, fires it up and just backs up over the top of the frozen snow bank! I attempted to rock the Cutlass and ended up spending the next 30 to 45 min digging it out of the snow. I know snow tires would have mitigated some of the problems but, give me RWD for fun and FWD for foul weather traction.
When we bought our Plymouth Reliant in ’81, with most cars on the road back then still RWD, you wouldn’t believe the fun I had running rings around almost everyone that winter! Except, of course, the occasional VW Rabbitt and (ugh) X-cars.
That reminded me of the last scene from The Terminator, where the half-cyborg chases the girl using only his mechanical arms.
The last “Gendarme” movie did the same stunt 3 years earlier (1982) with a 2CV. Citroën reused the footage last year in a commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqwyOZK0wQ
The first clip reminds me of the Corvette splitting in two in the 1976 movie, Gumball Rally, based on Brock Yates’ Cannonball Rally antics:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3uEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA72&dq=gumball+rally+corvette&hl=en&ei=ZkI_TrP-MIOysALepqH_Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gumball%20rally%20corvette&f=false
The article doesn’t really go into much detail, but I wonder if the ‘Vette was somehow converted to FWD for the stunt.
Either you convert it to FWD (I wonder how hard it would be to get Eldorado engine trans under the hood and fenders) or pulled along by an unseen stunt car.
Discovery Channel had a show called Ultimate Car Build Off and one of the episodes, called Push Me Pull You, involved making a single car out of two front wheel drive cars.
http://www.myfitv.com/videos/399394/ultimate-car-build-off-push-me-pull-you
I recall that when GM introduced the X-cars, they ran an ad where a Citation with rear wheels removed pulled a trailer — with the obligatory “kids, don’t try this at home” warning. I’ve also seen the half-car stunt with piano casters or some other kind of wheelettes bolted onto the rear.
Red Green did this once with a couple of K-Cars…
If the women don’t find ya handsome, they should at least find ya handy!
Imagine a slow day in the yard de la dismantling, a body saw ample tools and already oil/grease-covered dudes.
Wheeeee!!!!!!!!!
That’s a cool clip but watching him bounce up and down and hit the ground in that seat gave me a headache.