There was an episode of Top Gear where they dropped a Saab and BMW on their roof from 8 feet in the air. IIRC, the Saab survived, and was able to even open it's doors. The BMW was basically flattened.
The article describes the failure of the roof crush test machine after applying 4 G's of pressure to a Tesla. This brings to mind the memorable 1971 Volvo ad that had a Volvo supporting 6 cars on its roof: http://insomniacgarage.blogspot.com/2013/03/classic-ads-1971...
Apparently they had to do major repairs on the cars every night, because the jumps were so brutal. In one shot, you can see a large plume of oil appear as the car hits the ground and its oil pan is destroyed. :-O
yeah Top Gear did an episode on the Tacoma...they dropped one from a 10 story building, drowned it in an Ocean, lit it on fire and they were able to start it afterwards w/o any new parts.
Okay, drop a building on a Ford Ranger and clear the rubble away and try to drive it away after. That is, after you've drowned it in the ocean and set it on fire.
Top Gear once tried to intentionally kill a Toyota Hilux, ramming it, parking it in the sea, dropping a trailer on it, and literally setting it on fire. Nothing worked. It still drove.
I'm convinced that whatever remains of the charred Earth after WW3, somebody will still be driving a Hilux.
The one myth they did that I was truly concerned for their safety was when they piled a bunch of lumber and construction material on top of a Volkswagen Jetta and drove around. Having owned one, I had no confidence that the roof structure was strong enough to support it all. I think they were lucky that it didn't collapse and kill them, even though they wedged a 4x4 in there for support.
We had this in the 80s with tanks of cars that didn't have anything like crumble zones. The entire force was absorbed by the steel frame. A lot of people died.
A friend of mine was backing in to an unfamiliar parking garage and was watching the screen and all of a sudden we hear a scrape. There was an air duct over hanging the car and we hit it. The camera didn't think to show the roof. Luckily for us we hit the duct before hitting the sprinkler. That would have been a disaster.
My parents had their car parked right behind a caravan with a bike rack on the back - they didn't notice anything when driving off the ship, and so it was kinda too late to do anything about it by the time they noticed the impact damage to their car's hood from the bike rack bouncing up and down.
While I don't doubt the Hilux is likely a reliable vehicle, let's not forget it would have made for terrible television if it hadn't survived these seemingly impossible challenges. Top Gear hasn't exactly developed a reputation for being a factually accurate documentary series with many of the challenges being staged etc, so I'd take "literally couldn't" with the large pinch of salt it deserves.
I'd also applaud the efforts of the mechanics who worked on this episode, it was great entertainment if nothing else!
reply