Four-Year-Old Drives Dump Truck; Utter Chaos Ensues
From the people who brought you Van Damme’s split, epic preschool hooning in heavy machinery.
“Left and right, back and forwards.” Four-year-old Sophie has the fundamental goals of vehicle control down. But, generally, you’d allow a few years of practice between comprehension and, well, actually controlling an enormous piece of construction machinery. Because, if you gave this child a 12-wheel, 8x6 Volvo FMX dump truck on the road, the results would be horrifying. The thing’s got 540 horsepower and 1,918 pounds-feet of torque. So there’d be the wrecked truck. Also: a mess of civilian casualties. Nobody was harmed during the filming of Volvo’s new Live Test, the third in a viral series that started with Jean Claude Van Damme’s split. Instead, the Swedes gave Sophie a remote control and a closed course to navigate.
All-wheel drive, adaptive front and hydraulic rear steering may or may not have helped her, as she demolishes—and I mean utterly demolishes—the course. Volvo assures us this was a single take, including the roll. (Yes, of course there’s a roll). It’s like a multi-ton rock buggy capable of a 20-ton payload.
Van Damme may have blown us all away, but this is rock and roll. The Teddybears “Cobrastyle”—which samples Kid Rock’s “Bawitdaba”—is background music. My five-year-old, truck-loving son cried at the end. The two may or may not be related.
