Hooniverse Asks- What’s the Biggest Vehicle You’ve Ever Driven?
I’ve always had pretty small cars. I once had a Chevy Sprint, and I still have a little Austin Healey. The reason I like little cars is that I’m a stickler for space efficiency, and have always gravitated to the smallest on the outside, biggest on the inside Dr Who Tardis cars.
In fact, looking back on all the vehicles I’ve either owned or had the chance to drive, there’s nothing bigger than a Chevy 3500 Box Van in the bunch. Years ago I used to drive an ambulance, and I once drove a Ford F250 towing 8,000-lbs worth of trailer and Jaguar, but that doesn’t really count. And it scared the crap out of me.
My experience may not be very impressive, but I’m sure some of you can do better.
Here in LA, the streets are mostly wide and smooth, but get up into the Hollywood Hills, or out in the Malibu canyons, and they get narrow and windy. I was visiting a friend once who lived up one of these glorified sidewalks when I came upon an appliance delivery truck, also threading between parked cars and shear cliffs along the circuitous residential roads.
I thought there would be no way he’d make it, and I was getting worried about being stuck behind this enormous truck, but the driver obviously knew what he was doing, or had balls big enough to win a blue ribbon at the county fair because he was able to whip that truck in and out of the canyon switchbacks like it was Se7en.
That was pretty impressive, and I am equally amazed at the sight of a 60-foot long tractor-trailer backing down a narrow loading dock ramp at speeds I wouldn’t take going forward in my car.
So how about you, have you ever rocked a big-rig? Has a past experience included driving one of those dump trucks that can fit entire houses in their beds? Or, can you, like me, claim only garage-able vehicles in your bedpost notchings?
Image sources: [long-haul-truck-insurance.com, truckspills.com]
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A single (rear) axle dump truck is the biggest "truck" I've ever driven. I started driving that when I couldn't reach the pedals, driving around hay fields while the trailer was loaded with square bails. I've also driven heavy equipment (backhoes, tractors, skid steers, etc.) – my family owned a farm and an excavation business growing up.
I drove a lifted Dodge 2500 diesel with a car trailer full of motorcycles from Bakersfield CA to Monterrey. I was 16, and that shit was intense.
A 26 foot Ford F700 box truck.
Almost the same thing here, a few different 26-foot box trucks (rentals), both Chevy and GMC with 5-speed manuals or Allison automatics. A blast to drive, once you get the hang of it.
The biggest I've ever driven was a fairly large Econoline based Class-C motorhome back when I was a tech at a Ford dealer. I recall the hairest part being watching where the rear end swings because it had such a long rear overhang.
Cube vans are the biggest thing I've driven to date. The most memorable one had a ladder and box on top. As I recall, it was 4.08m tall, and I drove under a bridge with 4.1m of clearance – the pucker factor was high on that.
I got to drive each of these because my father was a trainer on all of them: GO Transit coach, TTC streetcar, TTC subway. The coach was really fun to drive because of the body roll on ramps, the streetcar was shockingly quick, and the subway was really fun for a few minutes but I could see it getting really dull.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/GO_Bus_2172_1.JPG/256px-GO_Bus_2172_1.JPG" />
<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3201/2801885108_c3e7a706d5.jpg" />
<img src="http://torontotransitpage.homestead.com/files/h2_subway.jpg" />
"the streetcar was shockingly quick"
When I was in Toronto for the Molson Indy in either '94 or '95, I took a special nonstop TTC streetcar shuttle from the hotel down to the track area. Never in my life did I know that a streetcar could haul that much ass. I also witnessed a TTC bus driver pull a U-turn in a space that would force the average SUV pilot into an 87-point turn. I left the city impressed with the quality of transit operators, a vast upgrade from the DC/VA demo-derby style I was used to.
I have a lot of respect for anyone who drives large vehicles (trucks, buses, etc) in heavy traffic. It takes skill and balls (or total ignorance and a congenital lack of fear).
Unless a gantry crane counts as a vehicle, my biggest is Class A RV towing an open car trailer, combined length around 57 feet. The trailer was narrower than the RV and the car on it was lower than the rear window of the RV, so hooking it up and backing were a bit of a challenge.
I took the wheel of a tall ship once, but that's a vessel.
One of these boogers:
<img src="http://www.publiquip.com/photo/Volvo-A25-1995.jpg" img="">
But this one was a little more interesting:
<img src="http://www.mfrural.com.br/usuarios_nt/rogeriotratores/waldir-porcao-824-3-80-3.jpg">
Anything hydraulically articulated is really, really fun, especially when you sit behind the pivot. I had one of those dump trucks deep into 5th gear (27mph), and was teaching people how to drive the loader after they didn't seem terribly concerned about qualifications.
Wow, you make it seem really easy, how long have you been driving these?
About 20 minutes.
There was a pink Komatsu version of the articulated dumper here in Saskatoon for a while. I damn near shat myself while looking for more signs of the coming apocalypse.
If you count road vehicles only, the largest things I've driven are non-articulated medium/heavy trucks like the Pepsi delivery trucks. However, I've had some seat time in large excavators like this JD 800.
<img src="http://www.hard-co.com/files/images/photos/JD8002.jpg" width=500>
I drove a Country Coach 40' at the age of ten, but it was on Grandpa's lap and only for about a mile.
I drive C-body armored trucks for a living, and they are actually just as easy to drive as my Jeep (and easier, if you're trying to do a tight u-turn).
When I was young, many moons ago, my father was a mine manager for Minnova Mines Inc, which has since not only been acquired, but seems to have vanished into the mists of time. Particularly annoying since my dad would like to receive his pension from them. Nevertheless, when he worked here, I had the opportunity to try out virtually all their mining equipment. My personal favourite was the Acco Dozer.
<img src="http://forum.bauforum24.biz/forum/uploads/post-41-1173468278_thumb.jpg" width="500">
I've driven a few bulldozers, though nothing quite approaching that size. There's something very sinfully satisfying knowing the amount of damage you can do with one of these things. Hoonastic indeed.
A medium duty 26' box truck. Not like a uhaul, but the heavier truck, stick shift, air brakes, dock height, 26k GVRW. Through the mountains. At 3am. Fully (over)loaded. Yikes.
But I was dumb enough to do it again .. and again. A bunch of times.
26' Uhaul from St. Paul MN to Toledo, OH.
FYI they do NOT fit under airport canopy overhangs (navigator was fired shortly thereafter).
Chicago traffic sucks. Even more so in a 26' truck.
Not if you have a cop motor, cop tires, cop suspension, cop brakes.
Is it the new Bluesmobile, or what?
I drove an E-350 based shuttle as part of my previous job
<img src="http://www.bargainbusnews.com/Buses/2269-1999FordE350Goshen/2269-1999FordE350Goshen-1.jpg">
My dad teaches a construction course in the summers, so I've also had the chance to drive around some heavy equipment. I think an articulated grader was the biggest.
<img src="http://www.crssurvey.com/images/grader2.jpg">
my dad's Freightliner :3
A good friend of mine was a mechanic at John Deere's prototype field testing station in Colorado for a number of years. He let me drive one of these:
<img src="http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz203/huntr93/stuff/john-deere-9620.jpg">
It rocked. That's about as different a driving experience as you can get.
Thats awesome.
"Field testing" in the original sense of the word.
I shuttled one of those between fields for some family friends a few months ago. The 1.5 miles on the two-lane country road was the longest / scariest 20 minutes of my life. I was sure I was going to crush every car going the other way.
Oh, that's what makes driving big 4wd tractors fun.
I own a tractor like that its a versatile 350 hp and you can get a lot of work done in a short period of time. Lots of horsepower
There was a time when I was younger when I had to drive larger rental box trucks all the time at work. International, Ford, Volvo, Isuzu. Probably the biggest was a ± 30' Mercedes diesel. This was before most of them were automatic and I learned a lot about stiff clutch springs and sore left legs. With a credit card and a plain old driver's license they'd turn you loose in those babies. The scariest one was a small-medium sized Ford from Rent-A-Wreck. We didn't find out about the intermittent failure in the lighting system until after dark.
Other than a couple of 27-foot Penske or Budget moving trucks with trailer, the largest thing I have driven is a really big forklift. I never got up to 5 mph but it was so much fun to lift and move really heavy shit with the nudge of a lever. Hydraulics are cool. It's too bad I don't have and can't find a picture.
I've driven an E-One Pumper, GVWR of ~35000. And an older Chevy based E-One with a GVWR of 29000. It feels good to drive something that physically won't fit in the narrow lanes of the two lane roads of my hometown.
Yes, but you have done it all on the wrong side of the road.
<img src="http://www.nolangen.se/mf%204900%2011.jpg">
That was way before I ever had my license.
Since I got my licence and moved away from Kentucky, I think it would be a 26' rental moving truck.
My paternal Grandmother's fuselage-sided 1969 metallic gold-flake four-door hardtop Chrysler New Yorker sedan with black vinyl roof and white leather seating. As her sixteen-year-old chauffeur, I piloted that enormous vessel whenever Grandma wanted to go shopping in town.
Having a posh restaurant lunch-with-cocktails at The King and I (this was long ago, Grandma was a wealthy regular, and I was tall enough that no one bothered to card me) with Grandma afterward was my dividend. Fond memories…
that's wonderful. great vehicle and it sounds as though she was a great woman!
The largest vehicle I've ever driven was a first-generation Humvee. By the standards of the absurd things you all have driven, it's tiny, but it feels a LOT bigger when you're racing an F-250 down a rough gravel access road… The speedo pegs at 55, but according to the driver of the Ford, we hit 75 before he went airborne and we both backed off.
In retrospect, one of the stupidest things I've ever done. But very, very memorable.
One of those little forty foot tall mining trucks? Pish. If you like mining equipment, you've go to drive one of these:
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/Bug_muldoon/20041210_226_grua2.jpg" width="600">
I've totally driven one, if by drive one you mean stand awed next to one at the edge of a strip mine in the Ruhr. I then noticed that the sixty odd tiny dots visible all around the bowl-shaped mine were actually sixty of these beasts, and the mine bigger than any other man-made object I had ever seen. You could barely even see those yellow trucks across the mine.
Since this thing is so often the subject of 'holy crap lokkit this' blog posts, but so rarely identified, it's worth saying it's a Krupp Bagger 288. Here's a blog post that does identify it, and provides a few more pictures and a link where you can look at it from space through the magic of google.
edit: I've driven a GMT400 (can't remember if it was Chevy or GMC) longbed. Yay me.
Very hoonish of you to give the full ID, nice. Now if you can just find a link to a good deal on a used one, you'll win the internet for today. I wonder if German heavy equipment hoons argue about which model is the best one. At least ones place has collected a whole bunch of them just to look at: http://ferropolis.de/
I used to hook up turnpike doubles for our night drivers. Two 53' trailers back to front.
First off, I want to see those two semis with the huge dump truck on the lowboys drive around a corner. It seems to me that it might be a rather tricky maneuver.
As for the biggest vehicles that I've driven, that would be a couple of 26 foot bobtail freight trucks. No big deal usually, but it could be a little exciting driving on snowy mountain roads with a full load of Caterpillar bulldozer parts in the back. Ah, memories…
Medium-sized U-haul towing an MG Miget on a flatbed trailer from D.C. to Sunnyvale, CA. Also, several of the larger U-hauls, fortunately not towing anything. My wife drove the large Penske rental back to D.C. from Athens GA, towing our MPV on a trailer. She's pretty bad-ass!
Go down the list of implement vehicles for the neighbors Farm. John Deere Combine was the largest.
Is it just me, or does the truck in the title pic look like it's only the front half of a very large something?
I'm just impressed no one's said "YOUR MOM!" yet.
You know how you can tell we're all guys commenting on this one here? We're all bragging about size. Me, biggest thing ever was some U-Haul and Ryder moving trucks. It's all in the motion of the ocean though, at least that's what your mom says
(Sorry I had too, really I'm not 10 I swear.)
Tomorrow's Hooniverse Asks: What's the Fastest Car You've Ever Satisfied?
That's 'cause she drove. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Probably a F-350 crew cab stake bed dually. There might be some rental box trucks in there somewhere, but I can't remember a specific one right now.
I drove a 26-foot box truck from the SF Bay Area to Central Oregon a few months ago. It was surprisingly fun. More maneuverable than I thought it would be and the view was fantastic from the cab.
But the biggest "vehicle" I've ever driven?
<img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1259/5167541624_fddd334b3b.jpg" width="500" height="333">
I wrote an article about the captain of a SF Bay ferry boat. Twin-hull, 6,000 horsepower ferry boat.
Here's one of the engines:
<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/5167541352_02e3e81c0f.jpg" width="500" height="333">
And here's the positively tiny tiller:
<img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/5166940967_dc08a148ed.jpg" width="500" height="333">
I got to drive it for about 20 minutes through the San Pablo Bay. The best part? Barreling down on a small sailboat while the captain said, "Just keep going, we have the right of way in this lane. He'll move."
That looks like a very uncomfortable, unergonomic driver interface.
With Power:
<DIV style="OVERFLOW: auto"><img src="http://www.boatinternational.com/brokeragenews/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/seafever-motor-yacht.jpg">
Without Power:
<DIV style="OVERFLOW: auto"><img src="http://cloudybay45.com/resources/Morgan+45-+Ludlow.jpg">
<img src="http://www.usedboats.com/media/boat_images_ub2/1/1/0/1/5/110151/106129937/view/01.jpg">
37' Cigarette with twin 454's.
I got scared and backed off at 3/4 throttle doing 80+mph across Lake Erie.
I sympathize. Going fast on water is a lot different than going fast on dirt.
A tie between these two.
A short bus for a bachelor party
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_y8SPNbAAKo8/SFdSSU0gpvI/AAAAAAAACSo/Fhptoyfc4s8/s400/totg-short-bus.jpg">
A street sweeper. They are lots of fun to drive as well. They can pull a u-turn around a pencil and there are steering wheels on both left and right sides. Both wheels turn in unison but there is a switch to let one override the other. No two driver battle of the wills sadly.
<img src="http://www.cityofgrandterrace.org/images/pages/N278/image002.jpg">
1957 International Harvester 80 Passenger School-bus, used by the whitewater rafting company I worked for. A close second would be "Brownie, The World's Greatest Crappy Old RV ™" or the FedEx delivery trucks at that part-time-job fiasco.
I flew that damn thing Dukes of Hazard style once… so awesome…
[youtube U8FBAuyW5qI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8FBAuyW5qI youtube] I've never driven a combine, but if I did, I would probably end doing something like this.
One of these days I'm going to ask my farmer brother-in-law to let me take the helm. Have to be strategic, though, I'm not sure I want to get sucked into the 14 hour shift he works during harvest.
Got the chance to fly the Goodyear blimp "Eagle" years ago. It was a wild thing for a 14 year old to do.
I am more envious of this than my roommate getting to hoon a Carrera GT.
When I was 18, the U.S, Army thought it would be a good idea to issue me an 11 ton M113A1 armored personnel carrier. Fully tracked, Detroit Diesel supercharged two stroke V6, automatic transmission, and a fifty caliber machine gun mounted on the commander's hatch. I'd driven tractors and Ford F600 two ton trucks before that, so the size of the large aluminum box was nothing new. I liked driving that track through the South Georgia piney woods at 20 MPH while we were in the field (I was stationed at Fort Stewart at the time), plowing down pine trees like matchsticks. Later, when I got out of the regular Army and joined the Utah Guard, I drove Deuce and a Halves, five tons, buses, whatever. I've driven a pretty good assortment of large vehicles in civilian life, loaders, huge RV's, forklifts, big trucks, whatever, but the M113 was the most outrageous and ridiculous thing I've ever driven on a daily basis. Oh, the .50 cal could cut down trees, did I mention that?
But you weren't old enough to drink. That logic escapes me.
Actually, I was. This was 1980. The bars in Hinesville were more than happy to serve us all the beer we could drink.
Nice. But did you ever drive that M113 on open roads? Through towns and villages? Up and down mountain passes in the Alps? I drove one of these as part of my military training in a country short on space for dedicated military bases (Switzerland). While we had a couple of "tank roads" to learn driving off road and on steep grades, we spent most of our time driving among civilians on open roads. We did move the machine guns inside while outside our base.
One day we stopped for lunch at a restaurant with a very large gravel parking lot which looks like was made for holding a dozen or so M113s, a frightened group of tourists approached us asking if they missed something in the news and they should worry… They were quite relieved when we told them this was just normal, basic, training. The inevitable photo session ensued!
Yeah, man I've seen our previous posts regarding this. No, I never had the privilege or the stress of driving an M113 on a paved civilian road, just on the tank trails of Fort Stewart, and through the woods, more than once throwing a track in the swamp, with grave consequences. When I was a GI in Europe, I was in an airborne infantry outfit, and just walked around with a rucksack on my back and an M203 grenade launcher in my hands. I got to see the continent over the tailgate of M35 Deuce and a Halves, never got to drive anything at all other than a parachute in Europe. Other than driving my '65 Chevy Malibu SS, which was such a beater that I never dared to drive it further than Venice or so, not so far from Vicenza, where I was stationed. That car would suck serious wind up in the alps, it only had a 283 and a Powerglide.
Actually, I'd rather Hoon an M113 in the Georgia Piney Woods than on an open road or through a nice village. I mean, the whole concept of driving an M113 is just plowing through shit anyway, not being careful to not fuck something up.
For me, 26' Penske box truck — the biggest ones they rent out for personal, "household" type use. This was at the end of college, using it to haul our team's FSAE car and a bunch of assorted tools/equipment. Heavy-duty truck rear suspension, relatively lightly-loaded, carrying a small open-wheeler with minimal suspension travel…yeah, we broke some rod-ends on that trip. Taking it over the Grapevine on I-5 was thankfully less harrowing than I'd originally feared, though, given that the automated-manual trans in it was quite smart about holding gears for engine braking (and rev-matching the downshifts, too — "cool, at least it sounds like I actually know what I'm doing!")
If boats count as "vehicles", then this:
<img src="http://sailtraining.org/images/ships/harveyg.jpg" width="500">
SSV Harvey Gamage. 131 feet overall, 81 at the waterline, 95 tons of pine, oak, spruce and Douglas fir, powered by 5000 square feet of sail (or a 220-hp John Deere diesel).
If it's land-only, then nothing bigger than an FJ-62 Land Cruiser, which weighs 4500 lb. and is slightly less responsive than the ship…
+1 for box trucks, but the biggest vehicle I 'raced' was 15 passenger van.
I was helping a group who was trying to sell a country club race track in Texas. My job was to take potential clients on a drive on the proposed, graded track. It was 3 or 4 miles of semi smooth dirt. We tried to take traction control off but the rent-truck-nannies had disabled that function. I think we had 4 vans and when the show was over, the fun started.
I almost got it wedged in between some trees when I took a path I though was safe.
All vans returned undamaged.
The largest vehicles I've driven are –
1- Freightliner FL50 box truck with what amounted to a machine shop in the box (complete with a Miller!). A horrible, slow pig, as it was powered (not really) by a Chrysler 318 mated to a slushbox – I had to whip it hard to get up even modest hills, and British Columbia is pretty much nothing BUT hills of varying degrees.
2- A forklift, the make of which has been lost in the mists of time, as it was for a job I had working for a metal scrapyard almost 20 years ago. Gas powered, and it had four forward gears and four reverse gears. The controls were dead simple – lift/lower, tilt, forward/back, gearshift for 1-4. That beast couple pick up a fully loaded Suburban and the steering wouldn't even get squirrelly in the slightest. It was only the second most fun vehicle to drive there due to the Bobcat with claws.
Good times.
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/photorel…
For about 10 seconds. Used to fly a lot, and before 9/11 the pilots on cross country flights would let kids into the cockpit for a few minutes. One trip from Sydney-Perth was fairly empty and most passengers were business trips, so my brother and I got to spend most of the flight in the cockpit playing tetris with the pilot and copilot. We were lucky enough that he got us to sit in the seat, he flicked off autopilot for a second (with the copilot keeping an eye out in case we fucked something up) and we each got a go at banking a few degrees left then right before it went back on auto.
<img src="http://www.controller.com/images/Controller/fullsize/79445879.jpg">
This. This exact one actually.
You wouldn't happen to fly in Alberta, would you?
/ I need a ride in that!
hmm… on road, a '78 or '79 GMC 5 star General with tow truck conversion.. off road, a John Deere Combine. my favourite would definitely be the clark-rogers 666c skidder.
Used to drive a 16 ft box truck with GVW of 40K lbs, 5 sp trans with a 2 speed rear. Fun stuff when your 18 on a summer job. I also drove a three axle dump truck sometimes with a trailer usually loaded with a back hoe for a friends father on the weekends. Remember this is in NJ, with NJ traffic….not fun
The biggest vehicle i ever drove was a 26 ft international box truck through the streets of downtown dc. It's a cast iron pain in the ass to maneuver it through loading docks around gov't workers 60k bmw's without causing all kinds of havok. the hardest thing i did in it was a 3 point turn you would have trouble doing in an f350. I couldn't believe you could drive it without a cdl. Then again it may have required one but penske will rent you anything.
The heaviest thing I've piloted would be a small-medium-sized propane-converted Caterpillar forklift (for work). Largest? Well… actually… Okay, I think it might actually be the W-body Impala I took Driver's Ed in. I've never driven anything even remotely weird.
Off-road vehicle: my dad's Case IH Steiger 385 hitched to the J&M 1050-bushel grain cart.
<img src="http://i847.photobucket.com/albums/ab40/ptschett/farm%20equipment/DSC01963-1.jpg" width="500">
Also I've driven older Steigers (e.g. Case IH 9280) with a 52-foot-wide field cultivator, and spent the last few days "on vacation" running that 9280 with a 40-foot Salford RTS tillage machine.
On-road vehicle: '85 GMC General tractor (Cummins 855 – 350 HP / 9 speed RoadRanger / twin screw) hitched to a Talbert drop-deck spread-axle flatbed, hauling big round hay bales.
Biggest thing I've driven is a semi with a 56' trailer. Bitch to get thru the little roads of the east coast, but great for the wide open highways of the Midwest. Heaviest load I had was 46,000 pounds of bottled water. Here's a funny for that, loads that do not require refrigeration are called "dry" loads, so I had 46,000 pounds of DRY water!
My biggest?
CVN-68, USS Nimitz.
To be fair, I was one of 4 guys with their foot on the gas, there was someone else 12 stories up steering.