Pressing play on the video after the jump will probably put you in a place that you’ve never been before. That place is sitting virtually on top of three blown Hemi engines making a combined total of about 5,000hp. Those engines are mounted in line, providing the power for a hella nasty pulling tractor. The neatest thing about this video is that it really illustrates how intense a run on one of these monsters really is.

You get to experience the crew lighting off the motors, the tractor hooking up to the sled and then the run itself. We watched the actual run several times because we were blown away with the speed of the tractor heading down the course. No bull, this beast is hauling some ass at mid track! The driver is working like a one legged man at a butt kicking competition all the while, too. It is a revealing look at how the tractors act in the heat of battle.

It looks so easy from the sidelines, eh?

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In the realm of old promotional videos, this one from Willys-Overland that shows all of the incredible things that Jeeps were used for in their heyday ranks among the coolest that we have ever seen. While it begins with a short sales pitch as to why the new “universal” Jeep is better and stronger than the ones that have come before it, the video then shows the “new” Jeep pickup, Willys station wagon, and Willys panel truck some 4×4 and some 4×2. After that is when the good stuff starts. You’ll see Jeeps with trenching units hanging off the back, Jeeps towing airplanes, Jeeps with PTO driven welders and chainsaws, etc. They were literally Swiss Army Knives on wheels and there was a whole industry developed around making attachments and implements for them. Yes, the Germans have their Unimogs and they are neat, but the Jeep’s compact size and pluggy little four banger engine allowed it to be used for jobs that a Unimog could never even consider doing.

The section with the “gas station owner” talking about plowing, towing, and pushing cars with it is great and the whole video kind of left us with the question of, “Why did they stop making these again?” Honestly, watch this film and think about it. Yes, the little Jeep is quaint by today’s standards but in all of the jobs you’ll see it do, what do we have today that does them that much better and more efficiently than a Jeep was capable of doing them? Stuff may be more complicated and comfortable for the driver but that doesn’t really mean that it is any better in a practical sense.

This is a super great video, especially if you love old Jeeps as much as we do!

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO WATCH “WORKHORSES OF INDUSTRY” A PROMOTIONAL JEEP FILM FROM HALF A CENTURY AGO –

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For this week we’re throwing down two stroke style for our American Powertrain Starting Shift. We get to sit (literally) in the driver’s seat of a 1980 GMC Brigadier dump truck as it hauls a big Vermeer log chipper up a steep grade somewhere in Connecticut. The truck looks to be pretty much immaculate. The interior is mint, at least as far as we can see. The engine in the truck is a 6V92 Detroit Diesel two stroke and it sounds mighty fine when the driver is putting it to work climbing up a pretty long and sustained grade.

The transmission in the truck is a 10-speed Road Ranger and while the guy isn’t necessarily performing any tricks with the thing or beating on it, the trans seems to shift nice and smooth and give no complaints. The pull starts off on level ground and the the grade picks up and seemingly continues to get steeper as the truck gets to the top. As he briskly walked through the gears at the base of the hill he has to drop a couple of gears by the time he gets to the top to keep the forward momentum going. The truck is pulling a Vermeer log chipper with a log loader on it. That’s the swivel seat that is on top with an arm that the operator can use to pickup and load material into the chipper. It weighs 15,000lbs when equipped with the loader so that thing is no spring chicken for sure.

Note what looks to be the tach bouncing all over the place in the dash! We really wish we could see the rest of the truck because the Brigadier was a pretty handsome model of rig and as we said earlier, all indications are that this thing is a showpiece. The 6V92 in this truck would have carried a rating of around 325hp. The Brigadier was made until 1988 when it was replaced by the Topkick model.

Press play to see and here this 6V92 Detroit Diesel work up and down the gears

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