A group of car enthusiasts in Australia recently drove a 1978 Toyota Landcruiser seven kilometers on the bottom of the ocean, setting a new world record for the longest underwater drive.

On the morning of July 29th, a bright orange Toyota LandCruiser drove into the northern Australian Sea to the cheers of dozens gathered at Mandorah Beach for a historic attempt. The 1978 “rust bucket” had been bought online by a group of friends for around $5,000 and converted into an insulated electric vehicle able to drive underwater, at depths of several meters. Dubbed the “Mud Crab”, the old short-wheelbase four-wheel drive buggy was meant to cover a distance of 4.3 miles (7km), between Mandorah Beach and Darwin Harbour, and thus set a new world record for the longest distance covered by a car driven underwater.

Read More »

18Wheels Inc., an aptly-named company in Finland, has developed a strange-looking electric 18-wheel all-terrain vehicle that it claims is vastly superior to the common ATV.

The millipede-inspired design of the 18Wheels Inc. all-terrain vehicle is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Basically, it consists of a snowmobile-like body and a set of 18 small wheels each with its own individual suspension system. One of the core ideas of the project was to make this unusual-looking vehicle soil friendly, so the wheels are specifically small so that they don’t damage the soil by leaving huge tire marks on it. The unique suspension system provides a special trajectory of movement and a much smoother ride over all types of rough terrain, which can’t really be said about traditional ATVs.

Read More »

A Belarussian company specializing in agricultural machinery recently unveiled a Formula 1 car built with tractor parts that can allegedly reach speeds of up to 320km/h (198mph)

The Russian city of Yekaterinburg recently hosted the Innoprom exhibition where over 150 companies from Russia and Belarus showcased their newest agricultural, construction, and transportation machinery. However, the ultimate stand-out was not a tractor, a combine, or an excavator, but a unique-looking Formula 1 car developed by Belarusian company Minsk Tractor Plant. At first glance, it looked like a slightly unusual racing car, but the more you looked at it, the more you spotted similarities to a tractor, which makes sense, considering that it was allegedly inspired by the company’s tractor-building pedigree and built using tractor parts.

Read More »

Japanese metal processing company Yamaguchi Seisakusho has been getting a lot of attention for showcasing its capabilities by creating a very detailed wireframe car that looks almost rendered in augmented reality.

If you’ve ever played mobile video games like the widely popular Pokemon GO, you probably know a little about augmented reality or AR for short. It’s a technology that visually enhances the real world with computer-generated images, basically overlaying digital elements onto real-life environments. Looking at the photo of this white wireframe car, you’d be tempted to think that it was the product of augmented reality, but it was actually painstakingly created out of metal wire. Photos of it recently went viral on Japanese social media, because people just couldn’t believe it was real.

Read More »

Trucks aren’t usually built for speed, but in the right hands they can become faster than any commercially-available supercar, and there’s no better proof than the legendary Shockwave, the fastest truck ever built

Originally built by the legendary Les Shockley in 1984, Shockwave was modified by Darnell Racing Enterprises and is still the Guinness record holder for ‘the world’s fastest jet truck’. The heavily-modified Peterbilt Semi had literally nothing under the hood, but that’s because a jet truck doesn’t need a diesel engine. Instead, this powerplant on wheels featured three Pratt & Whitney J58s jet engines at the back, which could develop a total of 36000 bhp to propel Shockwave forward at, well, shocking speeds. It could cover a quarter mile in 6.5 seconds, while a supercar like the Lamborghini Aventador does it in “only” 10.4 seconds.

Read More »

The BelAZ-75710 is a Belarussian ultra-class truck that has held the title of the world’s largest haul truck for the last 10 years.

Launched in 2013, the BelAZ-75710 managed to put the BelAZ brand back on the map. Back in the Soviet era, the company based in the Belarusian city of Zhodino made the largest and most powerful mining trucks in the world, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was surpassed by Western manufacturers like Caterpillar, Liebherr or Bucyrus, all of which have held the title of ‘world’s largest truck’ with some of their models at some point in time. But, a decade ago, BelAZ reclaimed its throne with a behemoth that puts all other ultra-class trucks to shame in terms of size and load capacity.

Read More »

A Swedish electric vehicle manufacturer hopes to become the IKEA of small EVs by shipping its cars as individual parts that can be assembled at their final destination.

Luvly, a Swedish start-up specializing in small and affordable electric vehicles, has announced plans to ship its tiny cars as flat packs to be assembled at their final destination. The company claims that this unusual model will allow it to fit 20 of its cars into a container that would otherwise only have room for 4 assembled vehicles, thus lowering transportation costs considerably. However, the Swedish manufacturer clarified that, unlike IKEA furniture, its electric vehicles are not meant for home assembly. Instead, the flat packs will end up at micro-factories where they will be quickly put together by specialized staff to ensure complete safety.

Read More »

A Vietnamese architecture student and diehard fan of The Dark Knight spent six months building his very own Batpod with the help of a team of friends.

Born in 1998, Nguyen Dac Chung was just a child when Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight hit cinemas, but the movie made such a big impact on him that he grew up dreaming of one day driving his own Batmobile and Batpod on the streets of his native Hanoi. He fulfilled half of that dream in 2020, when he built a functional replica of the Tumbler, Batman’s impressive Batmobile from the Dark Knight series, and earlier this month he completed his goal by unveiling a cool DIY Batpod as well.

Read More »

The Beast is a legendary 1970s muscle car powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin V12 airplane engine that can produce over 750hp and has a fuel consumption of around 2.35 mpg.

The story of The Beast goes back to 1966, when English engineer Paul Jameson decided to find out what would happen if someone put a tank engine in a street-legal custom car. Jameson created a custom rolling chassis for the car and fitted it with a Rolls-Royce Meteor tank engine, before turning to transmission expert John Dodd to commission an automated transmission for the unique car. Dodd became intrigued by Jameson’s wacky idea, so when its original creator put the project on hiatus for a while, he ended up buying it from him and completing it himself. It was a labor of love, one that eventually became known as one of the most impressive automotive projects in English history.

Read More »

THOR 24 is a unique big rig often referred to as “the most powerful big rig ever built” because of its horsepower rating (3,974 horsepower) reached through a 24-cylinder engine with 12 superchargers.

Can you imagine the god of thunder in truck form? Me neither, but builder Mike Harrah definitely could and the result is nothing short of insane. The 44-foot-long big rig is powered by two 852 cubic-inch V12 diesel engines and 12 superchargers and requires four drag parachutes to deploy out of the rear bumper to stop when it reaches its peak speed of 130 mph (209 km/h). It apparently took Harrah seven years and thousands of hours to build and cost over $7 million.

Read More »

The JCB Fastrac Two is a stripped-down and performance-enhanced JCB Fastrac tractor capable of reaching speeds of up to 247 km per hour (153.8 mph).

If you’ve ever driven behind a tractor, you probably already know that they are many things, but they certainly aren’t fast. Tractors are built for power, not speed, but what if someone wanted to make a tractor go really fast? Well, a few years ago, a team at English tractor manufacturer JCB set out to do just that and managed to set a new Guinness record for the world’s fastest tractor with a modified version of the company’s Fastrac tractor. Over two two-kilometer runs, it averaged a speed of 135 mph (217.6 km/h) and a peak speed of 153.771 mph (247 km/h).

Read More »

A 35-year-old man from India’s Tamil Nadu state recently set a new world record for the longest distance driven in reverse in under 30 minutes – 16 kilometers and 140 meters.

During an event that took place last week at Edappadi Bypass in Tamil Nadu, Chandramouli, a passionate motorist from Salem district, managed to set a new world record by driving over 16 kilometers in reverse gear in under 30 minutes. The man, whose passion for driving cars goes back to when he was only 10 years old, practiced hard for the task, knowing that he had to beat the previous record set by 22-year-old Tesson Thomas from Pathanamthitta of Kerala, who had covered 14.2 km driving in reverse for 30 minutes. Chandramouli managed to blow that record out of the water, backing up for 16 kilometers and 140 meters in just 29 minutes and 10 seconds.

Read More »

At only $2,600, the Robeta electric fire truck may just be the world’s most affordable fire truck. Not to mention you can buy it on Alibaba!

Fully decked-out fire trucks usually cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but municipalities, businesses, or even individuals looking to protect themselves against fire on the cheap now have a truly affordable and environment-friendly option. The Robeta fire truck is a one-seat full-electric vehicle with a range of 31-37 miles (50 – 60 kilometers) and a decent fire-fighting arsenal. It’s certainly not the most impressive fire truck ever made, but for $2,600, you have to keep your expectations in check.

Read More »

A 24-year-old man from Chengdu, China has to pay at least $150,000 in repair costs after trampling and vandalizing four luxury vehicles in a hotel parking lot while drunk.

The incident occurred on the evening of May 21, when a clearly inebriated man was filmed kicking and trampling on a number of luxury vehicles despite his girlfriend’s best efforts to stop him. It’s unclear what prompted this sort of reaction from the perpetrator, referred to only as Gao by Chinese media, but considering that he looks very drunk, a logical explanation may not even exist. The damaged cars include a Lamborghini and two Rolls Royces, and the repair costs have been estimated at over 1 million yuan ($150,000).

Read More »

Robbie Balenger, a vegan ultra-runner known for competing in unique races, recently went up against a Tesla Model 3 electric car in what was described as a modern take on the man-vs-horse concept.

Every year, hundreds of people show up in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales to compete against real horses in the traditional Man vs. Horse Marathon, a 22-mile-long endurance race where speed matters little. Everyone knows horses are faster, but over long distances, humans actually have a shot, and we’ve actually won the race at least a couple of times in the last four and a half decades. It was the concept of Man vs. Horse that recently inspired famous ultra-marathon runner Robbie Balenger to compete against a Tesla Model 3 electric car in a man-vs-machine-type race.

Read More »