>> NARRATOR: They're not your
standard pickups: vehicles with cameras, cranes, and computer
screens... arms, afterburners, and attitude... haulin' trash or
just plain haulin'... so grab a drink, take a load off, stretch
out, and get fired up for extreme trucks, now on<i>
Modern Marvels.</i> <font color="#FFFF00">Captioning sponsored by
A&E TELEVISION NETWORKS</font> There was time when a truck was
a truck... man's best mechanical friend... a pal to help carry
the burden... or give you a lift when you're feeling down.
Those vehicles could do everything... or so we thought.
There's a new breed of extreme trucks, and they know plenty of
tricks. They can roll over, play fetch,
even sniff out criminals... and they're begging for some
attention... like this one. Its body is made of
high-tensile-strength steel similar to armor plating.
Its high-tech electronic equipment includes exterior
cameras... and video monitors. Its movements are tracked by
GPS... and it even sports a robotic arm with joystick
control. No, it's not a James Bond car.
It's the Auto-Reach by McNeilus Incorporated-- an extreme
garbage truck: a vehicle designed for your typical
stop-and-throw traffic. >> SCOTT EDELBACH: On the
average, a-an automated collection truck like this will
pick up anywhere between a thousand and 1,500 homes a
day. The, uh, average manual
collection truck will only be able to average three to 400
homes a day. >> NARRATOR: The muscle behind
the machine's efficiency is its articulated arm.
It can reach out nine and a half feet, grab the garbage, and curl
a can weighing up to 2,000 pounds.
Try curling 2,000 pounds 1,500 times in a day.
This arm never gets tired. Neither does its operator.
Rear-loading garbage trucks used to require guys riding on the
back to throw refuse in the rear.
Now, the articulated arm does all the heavy lifting.
It also has an eight-foot side-to-side swing, allowing
it to reach around obstacles like a mailbox... or the car of
the space cadet who parks on the street during collection day.
The Auto-Reach is manufactured in Dodge Center, Minnesota at
the McNeilus Factory. >> TRACY TIMMERMAN: And what
we're doing in this area is attaching the arm itself to the
chassis. This thing is all run
hydraulically. The engine hooks up to the
hydraulic pump, which gives it the pressure to run through the
valve, and then the valve just diverts the flow to the
different functions with the hydraulic cylinders to make
the arm function. >> EDELBACH: Inside the truck,
the operator has a joystick control similar to the average
video game controller, so it's very simple for most people to
learn. When you move the joystick
out, the arm goes out. When you move the joystick in,
the arm comes in. Pull the joystick back; the arm
comes up. Push it forward; the arm comes
down. The toggle switch where my thumb
moves opens and closes the grabbers.
When you're done, you bring the arm in, tuck it, and drive to
the next can. >> RANDY VICE: Our all-can
grabber is designed so that, um, it, uh, can pick up various can
shapes and sizes. That's a fine line between
crushing the can and grabbing it with enough force so that it...
as brings it up to unload the refuse, it, uh, doesn't drop it
into the hopper. >> NARRATOR: It took almost 100
years for motorized garbage trucks to get this extreme.
The first garbage trucks were simply open dump trucks... but
by 1915, the first specially-built covered-body
trucks were introduced in Europe in a effort to keep rodents out
and odors in. However, the early bodies were
difficult to load, as garbage had to be lifted above shoulder
level to dump. In 1929, refuse collectors got a
helping hand when Heil built this "Collecto" body: one of the
first with an external hopper design.
The concept utilized a small hopper which was more easily
loaded because it was filled at waist level.
When full, a cable-driven lifting mechanism powered by the
truck's power take off hoisted the hopper and dumped it into
the top of the body. A door on top automatically
opened and closed to keep odors from escaping.
The Dempster brothers later popularized a variation
of the hopper design: the front-end end loader.
It used hydraulic arms to lift and dump... a Dumpster.
In 1938, Gar Wood Industries put real pressure on the refuse
business when they introduced their load-packer body, believed
to be the first truck with a hydraulic compactor.
The rear-loaded truck used hydraulic cylinders to force a
pair of panels forward, compacting the trash.
The truck could hold roughly five tons of compacted garbage,
a vast improvement which would revolutionize the industry.
The compactor on the Auto-Reach makes those first vehicles seem
like toys. >> EDELBACH: The body has a
hopper that holds approximately five cubic yards of garbage.
In that hopper, we have a packing mechanism that has two
hydraulically actuated cylinders.
Once the body is filled with garbage, the compaction starts
to take place, and the garbage is now packing against the other
garbage, thus creating the compaction ratio of-of 5 to 1.
>> NARRATOR: The compactor crushes its pungent payload
under 80,000 pounds per square inch of pressure.
The 28-cubic-yard body can hold about 12 tons of
compacted garbage. >> TIMMERMAN: The inside of a
garbage truck is one of the... one of the worst environments
we've ever seen. You've got all the material
that's packed inside the body under some pretty extreme
pressure. >> NARRATOR: High-tensile
strength steel is used to make the truck tougher than the
materials going into it. >> TIMMERMAN: What we've got
coming in here is different widths of the steel, different
grades of the steel-- anything from a-a regular-grade density
material, which is 50,000 tensile steel up to, like, uh,
this material that you see here is 190,000 pounds, uh, similar
to, like, an armor plate. It's a very, very tough, durable
steel that we use inside of our garbage trucks.
>> NARRATOR: As the body is being built, the electronics are
also tested, including the video system.
>> EDELBACH: I'm in the back of the truck standing in front of a
camera that's showing you the image of me in the cab of the
chassis. From there, the operator of this
body can see exactly what's behind him.
>> NARRATOR: And headquarters can see where the truck is,
thanks to GPS transmitters... OshKosh, parent company of
McNeilus, is working on a hybrid diesel-electric refuse truck
which is expected to get 40% better gas mileage than current
models. With 136,000 garbage trucks on
the road today traveling 25,000 miles a year on average, it
could mean a savings of 470 million gallons of fuel a
year. Oh, they'll also be a lot
quieter... great for those early morning pick-ups.
It'll be a real slam dunk. Think of this one extreme
vehicle as the Swiss Army knife of trucks.
It's one of the most versatile vehicles in the world, combining
the implement attachments of a tractor and the speed and
comfort of a truck. It's the German-engineered
"Unimog." >> BOB McTERNAN: Unimog is a
contraction of the German Universal Motor Gerat, which
means universal motor tool. It's the name that's been in
place since the vehicle was first put into production in
the early 1950s. >> NARRATOR: The Unimog is a
four-wheel drive vehicle with dozens of attachments which
simply bolt on. The same vehicle can be
converted from a mower to a street sweeper to a tree trimmer
to a snow blower in mere minutes.
Although new to North America, the Unimogs have been gaining
popularity in other countries for over 50 years in both
civilian and military applications.
>> McTERNAN: The Unimog has a colorful history.
The first sketches of the early Unimogs date back to December of
1945, and the gentleman credited with the concept and the idea
of a highly mobile implement carrier is a gentleman named
Albert Friedrich, who was an aerospace engineer for
Daimler-Benz at the time. And he saw the need to feed the
population in postwar Europe. They needed equipment to plow
the fields, harvest the crops, and take care of all the jobs
and necessities in feeding the population.
>> NARRATOR: But before the Unimog could be put into
production, Friedrich had to convince the occupying forces
the four-wheel drive truck wouldn't be used as a military
vehicle. After much debate, he was
granted a manufacturing permit in November 1945.
In less than a year, engineers took the rough sketches of a
fellow engineer and built the first Unimog chassis.
Even the early models of this unique hybrid truck and tractor
had implement attachment points, as well as power takeoffs to run
equipment. German farmers loved the
multifunctional vehicle. >> McTERNAN: They would do
everything from plowing the fields to harvesting vegetables
to running all the implements farmers run, and then on
Sundays, they could take the vehicle to church.
>> NARRATOR: Even the wheel spacing was designed with
farmers in mind. The width between wheels
corresponded to the space between two rows of potatoes.
But farmers weren't the only ones interested.
The Unimog became popular for fighting fires...
road maintenance... moving snow...
moving lumber... or moving whatever.
Large-scale production began in 1950 at the Daimler-Benz plant
in Germany. Since then, the company's sold
320,000 vehicles in 180 countries.
Some of Daimler-Chrysler's biggest clients are
municipalities that have different seasonal needs.
Instead of buying several special-purpose machines, they
can buy an "all-in-one" tool. Because the Unimog has been
around so long, there's plenty of implements available.
This front-mounted mowing platform senses obstacles and
automatically mows around them. The articulated boom has a
23-foot reach. At the end of the day, the boom
folds up neatly and is ready for highway travel.
In the winter, simply snap on a snowplow attachment.
>> PAT PINEDA: If you have the U500 with the Schmidt
snowblower, this particular implement is using two of the
Unimog's output power options. First, we're driving the main
rotor via shaft from the output PTO in the front of the engine.
Secondly, we can control all of the movements to the snowblower
with an onboard hydraulic system.
This controls the left, right, and up and down on the
snowblower. >> NARRATOR: Like a tractor, the
Unimog has a power takeoff, or PTO.
Which transfers power from the engine to the implement via a
spinning shaft. The Unimog can have up to three
PTOs. Also like a tractor, the Unimog
has a hydraulic system to operate backhoes, front-end
loaders... man lifts...
cranes and other hydraulic equipment.
Both hydraulic and PTO-driven implements are made for quick
attach-detach. But unlike a tractor, the
Unimog can zip to a site at 70 miles per hour, then go off
road if necessary. >> McTERNAN: One of the
strengths of the Unimog is its ability to get into very
difficult terrain. The Unimog has a minimum of 18
inches of ground clearance, so you can go over obstacles.
It's also equipped with full-time four-wheel drive
with both axle and inner axle differential locks, so you can
get power to all four wheels. The vehicle's capable of
climbing better than a 70% grade.
It'll take a 38-degree side slope, which if you think
about 38 degrees, you're kind of in the vehicle at a pretty
severe angle. The truck has a very low center
of gravity. The engine is mounted low in the
frame, and the transmission is remote-mounted, also very low.
>> PINEDA: Driving a Unimog is actually quite simple.
It's much like any other vehicle.
You have a three-pedal system where you have a clutch, gas,
and a brake. Range of speed varies from 240
feet per hour to 70 miles an hour.
Just, it's all how you have it geared.
You can have different gear options from the factory.
>> NARRATOR: And in case you want to take your Unimog for a
spin in England... >> PINEDA: The VarioPilot allows
the driver to operate the vehicle from either the right
side or the left hand side of the vehicle.
You simply remove the access panel.
Push the release button and lift the latch, which brings the
pedals up, off the floor. Slide the steering wheel over
and latch it back down. Replace the access panel, and
you're ready to go again. >> NARRATOR: With the ability to
mow, lift, push, pull, cut, spray, sweep, grind, haul and
scoop, there's not many things the Unimog and its implements
can't do. The only thing this Swiss Army
knife of trucks is missing is a corkscrew.
Okay, it's got everything. 10:06 A.M., Baltimore, Maryland.
The Baltimore Organized Crime Division Technical Assistance
Response Unit is called into action.
(<i> siren blaring</i> ) They race to the scene in their
own extreme truck-- a state-of- the-art mobile command center.
>> DETECTIVE DONALD BURNS: The truck's going out to a barricade
for a person who run into a house, possibility of a hostage
inside. We're going to assist TAC as an
offsite command post. By having the truck there, they
don't have to go to other locations for faxes or video or
lighting, camera, anything of that nature.
>> NARRATOR: The truck arrives minutes later, as does the quick
response team of the tactical unit.
>> Let's set it up right here, 'cause the scene's right around
the corner, okay? We don't want to get much closer
than this. >> Is this where you want to
stay? >> NARRATOR: This incident is a
home break-in gone bad. The perpetrator was interrupted
when a woman and her kids came home and surprised him.
Now he's taken them hostage, and it's up to the negotiator to try
to talk him into giving them up. >> It's about two doors in.
Just look through that open door.
You see the SWAT guys right there?
>> LIEUTENANT JOSEPH PETERS: Routinely we get called out in
these situations for hostage negotiations, also to provide
perimeter video surveillance, through the helicopter that's
flying above us now. >> NARRATOR: In less than ten
minutes, the truck's up and running.
Detective Craig deploys the truck's two telescoping
communication masts-- one that can extend to 58 feet, the other
to 52 feet-- can transmit and receive microwave signals.
On top are two remote video cameras, peering over the
building, which is providing cover.
The truck can download video from the chopper and relay the
helicopter footage or truck footage back to police
headquarters. Thanks to two 10,000-watt
electric generators, the truck is completely self sufficient.
>> PETERS: This extreme truck is basically a portable police
station-slash-TV station. >> NARRATOR: While the tactical
team prepares to enter the building, the negotiator
continues to talk with the suspect.
It's been several hours since the situation began.
If it drags into the night, the mobile command center will be
ready. >> PETERS: Another important
feature to this truck is we have what we call stadium lighting.
The arm has four very high- powered halogen lights.
The arm will raise up and turn. So, if we want to light this
whole block up, we'd just raise it and fire it up.
>> NARRATOR: Suddenly, some movement.
Tactical moves in. (<i> men talking over radio</i> )
>> NARRATOR: Finally someone exits the building.
Today, no one gets hurt. >> PETERS: The hostage
negotiators were able to talk the perpetrator out.
He released the two children and the woman first, and then he
came out and was handcuffed and taken away.
>> NARRATOR: This was just another day for the Baltimore
Technical Assistance Response Unit.
The truck is deployed an average of four times a week.
Trucks like this are the latest high-tech tools for homeland
defense, narcotic raids, hostage situations and event security.
>> DETECTIVE CHARLES CRAIG: This is the Baltimore City Police
Mobile Command Center. In this area, this is where we
do our surveillance and radio communications.
With this you can control the cameras on top of the truck, you
can zoom in and out and get different angles of the picture.
And he's controlling it basically by the mouse of the
computer. >> NARRATOR: The police also
have cameras on various buildings and several street
corners throughout Baltimore. The truck can control those
cameras and download the feed. >> CRAIG: So, we can sit here at
this location and watch what's going on across town or a couple
miles away. >> NARRATOR: This truck is
loaded with electronics: satellite TV, multiple land
lines, cell and satellite phones and eight TV monitors,
among other things. >> CRAIG: Right here is the
conference room of the mobile command truck.
The video that we're watching up front, we can also put into this
screen, which is a 42-inch plasma TV.
>> NARRATOR: This extreme command truck is equipped with
the latest communication technology, but its roots date
back more than 75 years. Understanding a quicker response
time equaled more criminals apprehended.
The Detroit police installed the nation's first one-way voice-
based car radios in 1928. A car could receive a call, but
had to pull over and telephone a response back to headquarters.
Despite the inconvenience, it dramatically improved
efficiency. Then in 1933, officers got the
ability to talk back when the Bayonne, New Jersey Police
Department installed the first two-way police car radios.
>> Police headquarters, Bayonne, calling all cars.
>> Okay, Number Three. >> NARRATOR: The system was
credited for one arrest in every ten calls.
The obvious benefits prompted other departments to install
radio equipment in their cars. Throughout the 20th century,
police departments have looked for better ways of collecting
and disseminating information. >> LARRY LAGUARDIA: Mobile
command centers have evolved out of necessity over about the last
20, 30 years. Sometime back, law enforcement
agencies started operating out of Suburbans or the backs of
pickup trucks, and they had some radio equipment there, and that
brought some centralization to a specific scene or an incident.
In the last 15 years, people began to build these mobile
command centers from the ground up.
>> NARRATOR: This mobile command center is the product of the
Allied Defense Group and LDV, Incorporated of Burlington,
Wisconsin, manufacturer of SWAT, bomb squad, HAZMAT, crime scene
investigation and other specialty trucks.
LDV starts with an empty shell when building a mobile command
center. >> STEVEN VASATKO: At the metal
fabrication shop, we cut the holes in the body, we install
the compartments, the observation decks, any kind of
catwalk. After that, we'll install the
generator and the leveling systems on the vehicle.
>> NARRATOR: Next comes the wiring.
>> VASATKO: We literally put miles of wiring into this truck,
and it's all to support the systems that are integrated into
it, and it can be either 12- volt; it can be 110-volt AC; it
can be computer network or phone cable.
>> NARRATOR: LDV installs custom-built cabinets to house
electronics. >> LAGUARDIA: This particular
cabinet is what's called the communication cabinet.
Inside here you see the cell phones, you see the modular
switching system similar to a small business PBX.
The amplifier for the external PA system and the computer
network is all routed right here.
>> NARRATOR: The truck can also facilitate communications
between various agencies. >> LAGUARDIA: There's different
types of radios. In layman's terms, they operate
on different frequencies, so people on UHF can't talk to
people on 800 megahertz radios, and what interoperability
systems do, it enables these different radio frequency types
to talk to the vehicle, and the vehicle takes and puts them all
into basically the same communication system.
>> NARRATOR: In the field, life or death can depend on
everything working properly. Back in Baltimore, the mobile
command center performed just as it was designed to.
>> PETERS: This truck is a prototype.
It's been a labor of love to put together.
It's a working man's truck. This is cutting edge technology.
Was glad the truck was here. Job well done, absolutely.
Welcome to the "World of Concrete," the industry's
largest annual event, where manufacturers demonstrate the
latest products, tools, and applications for-- you got it--
concrete. Globally, five billion cubic
yards of the stuff are produced each year.
That's enough concrete to... Well, that's a lot concrete.
Some of the biggest and most impressive products at the show
are the extreme trucks used to transport and place concrete.
Mack trucks, a name synonymous with big vehicles for the past
hundred years, is one of the largest chassis manufacturers of
ready-mix concrete trucks today. >> STEPHEN GINTER: When building
a Ready Mix truck, the most important thing to keep in mind
is that it has to be lightweight.
The lighter the truck, the more weight you can carry, and ready
mix concrete weighs about 4,000 pounds a yard, and the business
survives on delivering as many yards of concrete as possible.
>> NARRATOR: Most concrete isn't mixed on-site for economic
reasons. >> GINTER: When it's delivering
ready mix, the barrel has to always be turning, keeping it
from hardening. We use a rear engine PTO
connected to the engine, which is driving a pump system, and
the pump is going through a transmission, which is turning
the ready mix barrel. Inside that barrel, there's
fins, and as the barrel rotates, those fins mix the aggregate and
the cement powder and the ash. >> NARRATOR: Once at the job
site, the mixer truck changes the rotation of the barrel and
out spurts ten cubic yards of concrete.
The fins inside now act like a corkscrew in reverse.
>> GINTER: This truck will discharge ready mix in about 60
seconds, which is very quick. >> NARRATOR: When finished, the
drum is washed out with water to prevent buildup.
These trucks make it look easy, but that hasn't always been the
case. All concrete used to be mixed on
site, but the sand, rock, water, and cement took up a lot of
space. To save space, ready mix plants
started appearing around 1910. Concrete was transported in open
dump trucks. Unfortunately, if the trucks
were delayed for any reason, the concrete would start to set up,
ruining the batch, and perhaps the truck as well.
Then in 1916, Stephen Stepanian of Columbus, Ohio turned
concrete transportation on its head when he applied for a
patent for the first rotating-drum truck mixer.
Early mixers like Stepanian's design used a revolving cylinder
with fins on the inside to mix the batch.
Then in 1937, Smith Mixers of Milwaukee revolutionized the
business when they introduced the inclined axis drum mixer
similar to today's mixers. Its main benefit was a higher
discharge height. The higher the concrete is
discharged, the farther from the truck it will flow, saving a lot
of manual carting. Over the last 60 years, the
introduction of more powerful diesel engines and air brakes
enabled trucks to grow bigger, and they can now handle a
40,000-pound payload or more. Today's mixers are often used to
feed even more extreme trucks: concrete "pumpers."
>> PAUL BRAUCHLE: A concrete pumper, basically, is a
telescoping boom mounted on a chassis, and it takes concrete
from a cement mixer and pumps it to that location.
>> NARRATOR: A pumper is used to precisely place concrete.
Mixers unload into the hopper of the pumper.
A pumping mechanism forces concrete through pipes which are
connected to the boom. At the end of the boom, there's
a length of hose to get concrete exactly where it's wanted.
An operator controls the flow of concrete... and positioning of
the boom with a remote control. These booms can have an enormous
reach. Today's longest booms stretch
nearly 200 feet. That means a pumper could be
parked in front of your house, reach over it, and pour a pool
in your back yard. The Mack Mod Center in Macungie,
Pennsylvania, builds chassises for various manufacturers of
enormous pumpers. The mod center is where people
come for special orders. This chassis is for Schwing
America Incorporated. >> BRAUCHLE: They rate 'em by
the length that the boom can reach, and this particular unit
will be for a 61-meter, meaning it can go from the ground floor
up 61 meters, so if you were at the end zone on a football
field, you could reach out almost two-thirds the length of
that football field and lay concrete.
>> NARRATOR: To accommodate the boom, the mod center is adding
15 feet of length and several axles to a standard truck.of fact, it has the
longest frame that we can physically manufacture today.
It is 40 feet long in the basic frame.
Now, on this chassis, we have three steer axles.
The three steer axles are all designed to turn a different
amount each. The front turns more than the
second, the second turns more than the third, so that all
three axles will help the vehicle make it around the curve
without sliding or scrubbing. In the rear, we have three drive
axles. Where a normal truck would have
two, this one requires three. The way we accomplish that...
If this would be the two normal drive axles, we add an
additional one in front of it, which is basically a dupe of
this axle and drive train up here as well.
>> NARRATOR: The seventh axle is a liftable, steerable tag which
is lowered for highway travel and usually raised once at the
work site. The truck has more axles to
distribute the pumper's enormous weight... so if you're keeping
track, that's 20 tires. The completed vehicle with boom
will weigh around 110,000 pounds... 50% heavier than an
average loaded semi. When this particular Mack
chassis is finished, it's driven to the Schwing Factory in White
Bear, Minnesota... where the steel booms and pumper
mechanisms are attached. They also install four giant
legs. >> BRAUCHLE: There's, uh, four
outriggers, they're called, and in this particular unit, the
two in the front will telescope out, and then they have a piston
that goes down. You put a large pad on the... on
the ground surface to ensure that the unit is perfectly level
in all directions, fore and aft and side to side.
>> NARRATOR: At the job site, pumper trucks are double-teamed
by mixers, unloading one every two to three minutes.
One pumper can place 3,200 tons of concrete per eight-hour day,
but it's just another day at work for these trucks which
really pour it on... and pump it up.
Galena, Kansas. A small town in the Midwest.
A friendly place with a population of 2,500, and perhaps
a slightly slower pace of life-- with one major exception.
Galena is the home base of Les Shockley and his two jet
trucks-- "Shockwave," a 1984 Peterbilt semi, and "Super
Shockwave," a 1957 Chevy pickup. Screaming down the track at over
300 miles per hour, the trucks thrill fans at air shows and
drag racing competitions throughout the United States.
>> KENT SHOCKLEY: My father always described it as being
shot out of a cannon, but I've never been shot out of a cannon.
>> KENT SHOCKLEY: By the end of the run, it's pulling 6h Gs, and
when we pull the chute, we're experiencing up to ten Gs
negative. 13 Gs, they tell me, will detach
your retinas. >> NARRATOR: It certainly has
spectators' eyes popping out. >> NARRATOR: Not too many trucks
race a aircraft, or dogfight with stunt planes.
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: You want something that people, when they
leave they're not just going, "Well, that's all right."
You want them to go, "Oh, my God," and they do too.
>> NARRATOR: Racing the Shockwave jet trucks is a real
family affair. Les Shockley, is the face behind
the fireball. After years of racing both
conventional race cars and jet dragsters, he designed and built
his first jet truck, "Shockwave" in 1984.
In 1996, he turned over full- time racing to his two sons,
Kent and Scott. Today, Kent's back with his
father at the Shockley shop in Galena, to make adjustments for
his next show. Meanwhile, Scott's in Mount
Vernon, Illinois for the weekend's air show spectacular.
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: This truck has two afterburning J34-48 jet
engines here that we fully modify that come off a Navy T2A
Buckeye jet fighter trainer. The airplane just had a single
engine, non-afterburning, and then from right here back is all
afterburner. Makes all the power of the
truck. >> NARRATOR: The 57's two jet
engines produce 25,000 horsepower.
The Peterbilt has three jet engines, producing 36,000
horsepower. That's like the combined
horsepower of 48 NASCARS. >> NARRATOR: In 1960, when Walt
Arfons fit a Westinghouse J46 jet engine to the back of a
dragster, he created "The Green Monster #16."
The car was described as a big cart with a jet engine bolted
onto its rails. By adding an afterburner, he was
able to push the car above 200 miles per hour in the quarter
mile, making it the fastest and only jet car in the world.
But by the mid-'60s, he had company.
Several jet dragsters started making the rounds.
One of those cars made quite a splash with a 16-year-old Les
Shockley and his future wife Donna.
>> LES SHOCKLEY: This guy pulled up to the starting line and
revved this thing up, and when he hit the afterburner on this
thing, my wife had a Sno-cone in her hand, slung it over her
shoulder right into the face of the guy standing right behind
her. And I thought, "Now those
things, they have a lot of potential," because everybody
was just totally blown away by it.
>> NARRATOR: Jet car races and exhibitions continued to blow
fans away through the 1960s. And in 1972, Les finally
persuaded his wife Donna to let him build a jet dragster of his
own. After winning three National jet
car championships, Les's oldest son Kent suggested turning a
full-sized semi into a jet truck.
However, at the time there were other jet trucks racing with
single engines. Not nearly good enough for Les.
>> LES SHOCKLEY: We had the two bottom engines sitting in it and
I stood back and I looked at it. The engines barely stuck above
the tires, and it didn't even look like a jet truck to me.
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: I came home from work one day and Dad had a
third engine hoisted hanging from the rafters in the shop.
>> LES SHOCKLEY: So I picked it up with a hoist and rolled the
truck under it and I set up on top, and I looked at it and I
said, "Now that looks like a jet truck."
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: I was like, "Oh, man," you know?
Two was nuts. Dad really went crazy and
everybody thought, man, dad just went nuts, you know?
Two's nuts, you know? Why would you put three on
there? >> KENT SHOCKLEY: Why not?
>> NARRATOR: In 1991, those three engines helped Les reach
376 miles per hour to set a Guinness record for a full-sized
truck. >> KENT SHOCKLEY: Basically the
steering and the brakes of this vehicle operate like an
automobile. Everything else about operating
this vehicle is like an airplane.
We use hand controls, just like an aircraft.
This deploys the parachute. This is our AB fuel control
here, this lever here. Forward, the fuel's on.
Backwards, the fuel's off. These are the three throttles.
Uh, we have a throttle for each engine.
>> NARRATOR: In 1993, the Shockleys decided to build a
second jet truck. This time they decided to do
something a little retro-- a '57 Chevy truck.
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: The fuel we actually use in this truck is
over-the-road diesel. Got two saddle tanks, one on
each side. Each one holds 40 gallons of
diesel. This baby sucks the fuel down.
>> NARRATOR: The twin engine beast swallows 30 gallons of
diesel on a 12-second run. Getting the truck to go fast
isn't a problem... it's keeping it on the ground that's tricky.
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: The wings, the wings up above, got one back
here, this produces, at 300 miles an hour, it produces 3,500
pounds of down force on the truck, and the one up here,
right over the cab, we figure produces 5,000 pounds of down
force on the truck. So if you took these wings off
the truck, she would actually try to start flying.
Put the wings on it, it's on the ground and that's where we like
to stay. >> NARRATOR: When Les set the
Guinness record of 376 miles per hour, the truck's front end came
off the ground, and the tires started coming apart.
But just how fast can these jet diesels go?
>> SCOTT SHOCKLEY: This will run over 400, but Dad just don't
want us to do it right now, and, I don't know, I think he just
wants to hold onto the record a little bit longer, but I'm going
after it someday. >> NARRATOR: Shockwave might be
the fastest in our pantheon of extreme trucks, but the others
hold their own, in the mud or on the site, collecting or
protecting. They all have an extreme job to
do, even when that job is all <font color="#FFFF00">Captioning sponsored by
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