Twenty-eight wheels...of evil!
Two 500kW diesel engines drive this 28-wheeled truck up mountains as it carries antennae to observe the stars.
Could this one-of-a-kind truck be in the next Transformers movie?
Oh, come on. You know a super-duper-mega-blockbuster hit such as Transformers is destined for sequels. In fact, one of the best things about it was the overwhelming believability of it all.
Just kidding. We all know that green-screen alien robots fighting over the Hoover Dam with a hefty dollop of inane dialog and epileptic cinematography pushes the limits of incredulity. But that's part of the fun.
As much as I loved the movie--I thought it was an exhilarating, ridiculous thrill-ride--the fact that all the vehicles were based on real cars, trucks, and helicopters gave the film a bit of much-needed grounding. Optimus Prime was a Peterbilt 379, Bumblebee a 1974 and 2009 Concept Camaro, Starscream a F-22 Raptor jet fighter, and so on.
Gizmodo and Boing Boing recently dragged this mountain-climbing truck from the austere BBC to the attention of the blogosphere, and it looks like nothing if not evil. It's custom-built with 28 wheels, and it's designed to lift and carry 66, 115-ton antennae up to the top of the Chilean Andes for astronomical observation. More than 16,400 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level, the array is expected to reveal secrets from the earliest days of the universe.
That's all well and good, but to my unscientific, raised-in-the-80's eye, a bright yellow, 65.5-foot long truck that clocks in at 130 tons and can carry practically its own weight up some of the world's tallest mountains screams to be remade into a transforming robot and featured in a movie.
A monstrosity like this, with wheels galore and enough strength to lift its own crushing weight needs a good Decepticon name, though, right? Behemoth? Haulicon? Obliterator? Or maybe it's an Autobot named Guru, because it sits on mountain tops?
If you think you've got a better name for it, leave us a note in the TalkBack comments.
