Awesome Trucks

A look inside Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi factory, where hardworking folks have built every single TITAN pickup truck since 2003. We’re still amazed to see how coils of steel are transformed by man and machine into the vehicles we rely on every day for work and play.

While Gordon Murray is used to designing F1 race cars, he says his proudest achievement is this tiny truck, designed for less developed areas. It can be hand-assembled in 12 hours, drive 600mi per fill up, handle rough terrain, and carry a 2 ton load while fording 3ft of water.

Jay Leno’s Garage shares one of the most unique vehicles you’ll ever see. This gaspunk beauty is a 1939 Plymouth fitted with a 300hp Cessna engine. It took Gary Corns, his friends and his two sons about 1.5 years to build the racer. It even has a similarly-themed tow truck.

Today I Found Out points out why there are only a handful of foreign light trucks available in the US. It all has to do with the chicken tax, a 25% import tax on trucks that the US imposed in 1963 in retaliation for European countries placing a similarly high tariff on US chicken.

We visited Toyota’s 4.2m sq.ft. San Antonio Texas manufacturing plant to see how they build their rugged Tacoma and Tundra pickups. Over 7200 people from Toyota and its partners work in concert with robotics to complete a truck every 60 seconds. (Video by Jim Rough)

Hagerty shares this time-lapse of an old Ford Flathead V8 engine being stripped down to its block, then painstakingly rebuilt to like-new by Thirlby Automotive with the help of Edelbrock. It’s amazing how good something this old can look with enough time and effort.

Hitch Theater’s portable movie screen and projector stand transforms any pickup truck into a pop-up drive-in movie theater. You’ll need your own projector, video source, and power, and their Kickstarter goal is too high, but it’s still a nifty idea.

Dubai auto shop NSV shows off its 6×6 Toyota 70 Series Land Cruiser. A collaboration with 4×4 and 6×6 conversion specialist Multidrive, this homely pack mule has a 398hp 4L V6 and an active third axle.

Bruiser Conversions turns Jeep Wranglers into monstrous off-road pick up trucks that they call the JK Crew. Each build varies in specs, and this particular unit’s already been sold, but the shop can fit it with custom suspension, bumper, tube doors and more.

Volvo Trucks demonstrates the insane amount of power one of its FH16 trucks can exert, as a single truck pulls 40 loaded containers weighing over 1.6 million lbs. We’re not sure it really helped, but they put World’s Strongest Man Magnus Samuelsson behind the wheel.

Jeep and Mopar celebrate the Easter Jeep Safari’s 50th anniversary with seven concept off-road rides. The highlight of the batch might be the Trailcat, a Wrangler with the Hellcat’s 6.2L Hemi V8, but the retro Jeep Shortcut has won us over. More here.

We’ve seen an R/C model of Ken Block’s Ford Fiesta. But this builder created something even more impressive – a working scale version of the 18-wheeler that transports Block’s car. Be sure to check out many other amazing R/C vehicles on monsterchannel24.

Similar to the Tarus, the Russian-made Sherp uses fat low-pressure tires to bobble through all kinds of terrain, except in this case the tires are 5.2ft in diameter. It also has a 44hp Kubota V1505-t engine, a 5-speed transmission and an endearing steel body.

A truck driver in a Sri Lankan fuel depot shows off his impressive maneuvering skills as he manages to turn around his semi and trailer in what seems to be an impossibly small space. Who needs 3-point turns anyway?

Based on the imposing Nissan TITAN XD, the TITAN Warrior raises the stakes by raising its height almost 3″, and its width by 6″. It rocks ginormous 37″ tall off-road tires on 18″ wheels. Terrain crushing ability aside, its sculpted front end and sporty interior look just awesome.

Hoodworks’ first in a series of replacement truck tailgates. The GearGate Cycling Comp has universal bike mounts, heavy duty lock chains, a Nanuk toolbox, a Cannon Safe combo safe, external and internal waterproof LEDs and more.

Legacy Classic Trucks founder Winslow Bent graced Jay Leno’s Garage with one of their restorations. It’s a Dodge WC63 military transport truck that’s been reborn into an undying tank for when the boss wants to role-play as a working man.

Liebherr walks us through the process of turning raw sheets of metal into its gargantuan, 600 ton 282 C Haul trucks at their facilities across Australia. The scale of these things doesn’t sink in until the semi shows up to transport the truck’s hopper.

The most badass production 4Runner ever, the TRD Pro is the truck we’d want in a zombie apocalypse. Its TRD Bilstein shocks and multi-terrain systems will conquer any surface you can throw at them, and Crawl Control and Hill Start assist make quick work of tough terrain.

To demonstrate their durability and traction control system, Volvo Trucks put Sophie, a 4 year-old girl behind the wheel of an 18-ton truck, and asked her to drive it through a challenging obstacle course. For safety’s sake, she used a remote control. Thank goodness.



The 2016 Sierra Denali features an elegant, bejeweled exterior and a super quiet cabin with lots of tech connectivity – it’s a great truck for the person who appreciates thoughtful design details, conducts lots of business on the road or likes to tow big toys.

Off-road race champ BJ Baldwin takes his 800 hp trophy truck through the forests and urban jungles of the Pacific Northwest to hunt down an elusive sasquatch named Bruce, who has a speedy off-road vehicle of his own. For more fun, check out Recoil 1 and Recoil 2.

Volvo gives us a glimpse of its future haulers, which will act much like our mobile devices. These trucks can automatically download updates in real time, change their internal specs to suit the job or the driver, schedule trips to the mechanic and more.