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- Hello, I'm Gav. - I'm Dan.
We're The Slow Mo Guys,
and this week on "The Super Slow Show,"
what have we got, Dan?
This week's all about vehicles.
You could say we're in the slow lane.
- Excellent pun. - Thank you. Thank you.
Excellent name for the week, I think.
Although our vehicles aren't really gonna be
in a particular lane, I would say.
More like to be like in a crumpled heap, I think.
Yeah. But crumpled heaps look much better in slow motion.
Dan: We're going to be shaving the top off a moving truck
and crashing two cars together as fast as we can.
- I'm excited. - Me, too.
( theme music playing )
One of the most requested subjects
for a slow mo ever since we started this channel
was a car crash.
And because we don't like letting you down,
we've finally done it,
and it only took us seven years.
Yeah, only seven years.
Mainly because I didn't want to trash my car,
and there's not enough room in your back garden,
and also you don't drive.
This is correct.
So we had a word with our special effects team.
They said we can get
a 25-mile-an-hour speed on each car
for a 50-mile-an-hour impact.
Yeah, we were like, "No, no, no,
We don't want a fender bender.
We want to annihilate the cars.
Can we double it?"
And they said, "Now we're talking."
So now we're about to film
a 100-mile-an-hour head-on impact
at a thousand frames a second.
And we've even got the tight angle
running at 2,000.
- Isn't that nice? - Cheeky.
Let's look at our setup.
People may be wondering
how we're gonna manage to crash two cars
into each other without anyone driving them.
The method we've got is we've got a tow car here, or a truck--
- Beastly. - Beastly.
And you've got two cables coming from it here and here.
They go from the end of the truck
through this pulley
to one of our cars,
and then through this pulley to the other car,
so they're going to come in at the same direction.
So as this car drives off into the distance,
the cars just get pulled straight into each other.
So this truck will drive off.
When it hits 50 miles an hour,
the cars will be about 14 feet apart,
at which point
this metal cable
will turn to be taut
and it's gonna unlock this
so that it doesn't rip the back of the truck out.
Quite a feat of engineering, all this.
It really is.
It's quite elaborate.
But it's gonna work, essentially,
'cause we need to guarantee
that they're gonna hit in the right spot
so we can get it on the Phantoms.
That's true 'cause one of our angles is pretty tight.
- Yeah. - Pretty tight.
Okay, so you're responsible for this car.
Yeah, I came up with a little bit of character design
for the guy who would drive this car.
- Okay. - He was a clown, actually.
Do you mean like literally or just an idiot?
No, an actual clown, a working clown.
He would frequently transport balloons full of paint, as they do.
Clowns are famous for that.
I'm going to put this one on the shelf back here.
All right. So that one should go.
So when it crashes, it gets some height,
and it maybe will come through the glass.
- Yeah, that'll be nice. - I like it. Yeah.
- So here's your car. - Yep.
What was your person doing for a living?
Well, mine was actually a fruit salesman,
but he'd fallen upon hard times.
So he couldn't have a cart anymore.
So he had to just put all his fruit in the car.
So it's like a 2008-era fruit man.
So these are slightly heftier than paint
- 'cause they're slightly harder. - Yeah.
So I'm expecting maybe some to go through the windscreen,
or something like that.
I'm just gonna lob them in.
Here, just straddle the GoPro with melons.
So we're up here. We've been harnessed in.
So-- I mean, if any car parts come flying towards us,
there's no chance that we can get out of the way.
Just have to duck, I guess.
Yeah, but at least we won't fall three feet to the containers.
That's true.
Also we're up here with the cameraman,
who's the only other person
that actually has a good vantage point,
but he can't look at it
because he's looking at us.
So we're going to take a bullet for Tony
if a tire hub comes our way.
So if a wheel comes flying at him,
- I guess... that's it. - Okay.
Are you ready?
I think we're ready.
- Yeah? - I'm nervous but I'm ready.
Okay. Right, three, two, one, go!
Off he goes.
- Oh, no, the concrete's moving. - Is that an issue?
I think so.
It's an issue.
- Oh! - Dan: Oh, man!
Oh.
That didn't work. ( bleep )
Dan: The concrete moved.
- Oh, man. - So...
the sort of anchorage point
on the concrete--
the concrete wasn't heavy enough.
- So I imagine-- - Dragged it.
It dragged it, like, 15 feet almost.
Dan: Because it missed our Phantoms.
Gav: I think we have to do it again.
Dan: Yeah.
Thankfully it'll be really cheap
and not a big deal in any way.
And just like that, some time has passed.
We have two brand new cars fully loaded
with the same exact items.
Yeah, last time we had a bit of a failure
because we had one K-rail
which was used as the anchor point with the pulleys on,
but the weight of the K-rail
was too similar to the two cars being pulled,
which meant that the timing was off
'cause they got yanked away,
so this time, we've doubled the K-rails
and we've also put three-foot pins into the ground.
So hopefully this time there well be no mess ups
and we'll get that exact perfect smush that we want.
And the drag of the K-rails
just slowed down the rate that they hit each other,
so now they should hit a lot harder,
right in the middle where we want them.
Good luck, us.
You nervous this time?
Well, second time's the charm.
And I say that because we can't afford to do it again.
So let's see what happens.
Maybe we'd be even more tanned and injured the next time we try it.
Right?
- All right, I think I'm ready. - Okay.
Three, two, one, go!
Gav: Keep an eye on the K-rail.
- Dan: This is great. - Gav: Come on.
Dan: He's bookin'. He's bookin'.
Come on. Come on.
( together ) Ooh!
Dan: What?
( together ) Ooh!
Oh, my God. Oh!
Dan: Look at the steam escaping from there!
That was class.
It was like the front of the cars burst.
Did you see that?
Gav: There was a lot of debris in the air there.
- There was. - I can't wait to see that back.
That went, like, 20 feet. That was amazing.
Gav: That went not bad. That is almost dead on.
Dan: Oh, the wheel moves, on the left-hand side one.
Look, the back wheels are off the floor.
Oh, look at that melon coming out.
So the back car...
Look at how high off the ground
the back-- the right-hand side car is.
It's just taken off.
That's great.
Whoa.
Look at the front wheel there.
It just gets smushed.
And then all these melons start flying.
And the melons pushed loads of shards of glass out.
So it wasn't even the crash that smashed the glass.
It was the melons hitting the glass that smashed it.
You would not wanna be in there.
- No, you wouldn't. - And I'm glad no one was.
Think you got a flat on the front of that one.
That is exactly what we wanted. Look.
That's the GoPro that was in the middle of the--
Oh, it's not even destroyed! Perfect.
- Gav: Listen to the hiss. - Dan: What's that noise? What is that?
I think it's the Freon leaking out.
I think it's the air conditioning.
Maybe you should sit on that car.
Then there'd be "free" on that car, too.
- ( chuckles ) - I'm sorry.
It looks like it's bleeding. You see that?
That's, like, pretty hectic. Isn't it?
All right, let's take a look inside, shall we?
Yeah, for sure.
Gav: That's actually given a quite nice, colorful paint job here.
That is an absolute fruit massacre.
Smells really good, though.
It smells tremendous.
It's like the mix of sort of
early '90s car smell and watermelon.
The amount that's just wedged up against the windscreen and the dashboard.
It's all smushed to the front.
I think that looked about as beautiful as it could
for what the subject was.
That's something I've always wanted to do.
What always amazes me is the fact that--
of how much power is involved and how much force
because can you imagine just trying to push this with your hand?
You can't do anything, but when there's two cars hitting each other,
it's like paper just being ripped apart.
At high speed it's almost like tin foil crumpling,
and then you realize it's bloody solid metal.
- Yeah. - Hopefully you enjoyed that car crash.
Feel free to subscribe to the Slow Mo Guys,
and we'll see you in the next episode
of "The Super Slow Show."
- There was sumo wrestling. - The magnet smash.
- The ice sculpture explosion. - Three-stone smash.
Aw, that was really messy.
I wonder. What's your favorite?