Georgeta, a 35-year-old truck driver from Romania, has been dubbed the Romanian Barbie for surrounding herself with the color pink,  which dominates both the outside and inside of her truck.

Female truck drivers are definitely not the norm, but Georgeta really stands out with her pink outfits, pink truck, and very colorful personality. The so-called ‘Romanian Barbie’ went viral in her home country this week after photos of her and her pinked-out trucks started circulating on social media. The young woman has been driving a truck for 12 years, working mostly in Spain, but she recently came home, bought her own truck, and began working for herself. She spends most of her time in the truck, which is why she spent a lot of time and effort turning it into a cozy space that reflects her passion for the color pink.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Luca Bordin is a big fan of American trucks, and since he couldn’t get his hands on a real rig, the Italian handyman decided to build his own Peterbilt 359.

Luca, who lives in Venice, Italy, told Wired Magazine he finds European truck small and dull compared to the American behemoths, but even if he could afford to buy a real big rig, it would never fit through the narrow streets of his home city in Northern Italy. So after seeing a YouTube video of a Dutchman driving around in a 1/4 scale replica truck, he decided to build his own Peterbilt 359, just to see if he could do a better job. Making model trucks was never really a big passion of his, but after seeing that video, the challenge was just too hard to resist.

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Known as Dekotora, Decotora, or simply as Japanese art trucks, these incredible masterpieces on four wheels have become a symbol of Japan.

Dekotora is an abbreviation for “decoration truck”, and if you can say something about these trucks it’s that they are very decorated. That’s basically what defines the Dekotora art movement – adding as many decorations to your truck, as you possibly can, while keeping it operational. And making use of the ingenuity that defines the Japanese, they have been able to create some truly impressive rigs that blow your mind. Neon lights, flashy spoilers, manga and kabuki artworks are all part of a Dekotora artist’s arsenal, in his quest of creating the flashiest truck possible.

The Dekotora movement was born in 1975, when Toei released the first of its 10-movie series called “Trucker”, which featured a trucker who drove his overly-decorated truck all over Japan. The movie was a huge success, and people started tuning their own big rigs to resemble what they saw on screen. Dekotora truckers are very passionate about what they do, and money is no object when it comes to turning their vehicles into flashy masterpieces. They often form communities where they can show off their creations and interact with other art-truck enthusiasts. Most of them try to adorn the trucks with as many decorations as possible, while keeping them street legal, but there are those who go over the limit and create impressive Dekotora beasts that can only be admired in exhibitions.

There are three main Dekotora styles – Kansai, Kant and Retro, and starting with the late 1990s, the Gundam franchise has had a huge influence on the world of Dekotora. I guess the Japanese love robots and sci-fi,even when it comes to big flashy trucks.

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The first time I laid eyes on Maciej Drwiega’s LEGO trucks, I thought they were life-size, that’s how real they look. Of course the photo angle helped a lot, too.

Maciej Drwiega (let’s see you pronounce that) is a big LEGO fan who likes to build replicas of trucks, using the popular bricks. His 1:13 scale creations look as good as the real vehicles and even have detailed interiors and detachable hoods that reveal the engine. How cool is that? I wonder how long it takes the Polish LEGO master to build one of these babies.

Kenworth K100 Aerodyne

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