Junk Yard Megawars - \"rock crawler/amphibious/saltflat racer\" car building competition

I just watched a show on the Discovery chanel about 3 teams competing to build the best vehicle from only the stuff they can find in a wrecking yard.

They were given 20 hours over 2 days to assemble a machine that could race on the salt flat against the other team's cars, crawl over big rocks through a serious little course, then float across a river to the finish line...

The American team just basically butchered a Chevy pickup and fitted barrels down the sides.

The Brittish lot wanted to start with a Land Rover, but changed to a Cherokee after a bit, and with no ground clearance, 20 or so barrels to float on and a V4 outboard it was an interesting machine.

The Russians thought outside the square (i think I heard them say "what's a sqaure") and built their machine using a f'glass boat, Celica motor, the Pom's leftover Rover axle and a motorbike front end bolted where the outboard used to be.

Now, whilst I agree with the hosts that they all showed a fair bit of enginuity and skill, in the shot behind the hosts most of the time was a perfectly good mid 60s Beetle sitting on top of another car in the junk yard. Personally I would have pulled the Beetle off the pile, sealed it well, put the best motor in I could find there, bung some big wheels on it and you'd be set... Somehow I don't think they were thinking. The Russians at least didn't stick with the "convert a 4x4" idea, but surely it doesn't take real genius to come up with "hey; VW, big rubber, seal it, we're done..."

[Edited on 29-12-2002 by The CAR VET]

Back at Home - Emerald, they used to be (probably still is) a 4x4 weekend where they would make a big oval circuit with 4 mud filled trenches which 2wd and 4wd classes - 4,6 and 8 cylinder mud skippers of differing breeds would battle it out in classes and then together.

Interestingly the humble bug was there at the end. If it wasn't for clearance it would beat the fully jacked open class V8's as well. When the bug did get bogged though - it would need the tractor to break the suction it had with the earth.

Rollovers - mud slinging - flame throwing and ear drum piercing would go on for the whole weekend - the humble aircooled little brother would be kicking shins the whole time without dissapointment where the V and straight 6's would die by the end of the saturday and all the other 4 cylinders were cracked, split or siezed.

Awesome weekend - Amazing comparisons.