Single Link Post, putting SubaruBlue on the Blue.

March 10, 2014 1:31 PM

RC Subaru WRX STi versus many many stick bombs. Perhaps I'm easily impressed but they brought out a lot of very nice equipment to do this shoot.
posted by Purposeful Grimace (20 comments total)

I love this. We just bought a BRZ. My husband sent me this the other day and I wanted so badly to post it to the blue but was afraid to because it's a viral. Don't really care, it's still awesome. I want an r/c car with suspension that does donuts!!
posted by lonefrontranger at 1:39 PM on March 10, 2014

I like it when Ken Block does that in a real car. Here he is in San Francisco. I'd still rather have the WRX than the Focus. Unless I could have Ken's custom Focus.
posted by white_devil at 2:09 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would wager that since it was done in Japan, it's probably a Tamiya TT-01 R/C car with drift tires and the WRX STI body on it. That thing can probably go much faster than it does in this video, though they probably geared it down to help with sending it into a drift.
posted by JauntyFedora at 2:10 PM on March 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

W/r/t Ken Block. I hate that some energy drink company and a car manufacturer can just shut down the ENTIRE BAY BRIDGE and a huge chunk of downtown SF for basically a marketing stunt.

But the video is pretty bitchin'.
posted by deadbilly at 2:16 PM on March 10, 2014

I hate that some energy drink company and a car manufacturer can just shut down the ENTIRE BAY BRIDGE and a huge chunk of downtown SF for basically a marketing stunt.

IIRC, they did most of that before morning rush hour - all the sunglight, none of the traffic.

(Some people on reddit also said the video explained so many things once it came out, like how someone was able to leave circular skid-marks on one of the largest bridges in the country.)
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:27 PM on March 10, 2014

I don't understand the stick bomb part - what makes them pop up like that?
posted by Sebmojo at 2:36 PM on March 10, 2014

I don't understand the stick bomb part - what makes them pop up like that?

DYNAMIC TENSION!!
posted by njohnson23 at 2:46 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Doesn't look like they used the grand finale shot from the making-of in the final video. Or if they did, they fixed it in post...
posted by Devonian at 2:57 PM on March 10, 2014

I would like Subaru to hire Ken Block and do this with a real car and scaled up popsicle sticks. Internet, make this happen.
posted by chavenet at 2:57 PM on March 10, 2014 [4 favorites]

DYNAMIC TENSION!!

Huh.

It is so vanishingly rare these days I come on something that 'everyone' seems to know but I don't.

:)
posted by Sebmojo at 2:58 PM on March 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have never heard of 'stick bombs' before.

This is an awesome introduction.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:09 PM on March 10, 2014

I do wonder how that Ken Block video will look in 200 years time. You know, after the enormous petrochemical fuelled environmental step change is starting to settle down into whatever we call the next geological era. When you start to break down exactly what's happening there, what forces were brought to a focus, and why, it approaches a Naked Lunch moment really rather quickly.

I suspect that decadent won't even begin to approach it. Wish I could live long enough to find out.
posted by Devonian at 3:14 PM on March 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah, the video is impressive... and check out the stick bomb pages linked at the end of Wikipedia article. Different kind of impressive.
posted by hat_eater at 4:08 PM on March 10, 2014

I did not know that RC cars were capable of such sick drifts. It makes me long for a non-FWD car.
posted by invitapriore at 4:51 PM on March 10, 2014

I did not know that RC cars were capable of such sick drifts.

Here is a video of the HPI Micro RS4 (about half the size of the one in the Subaru video) imitating Ken Block.
posted by mmoncur at 5:08 PM on March 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'll just pretend it happened in one take.

Yeah, the editing really kills it for me. If it was one long take or a few longer ones, that would be cool, as it is, it's sort of meh.
posted by signal at 5:59 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Ken Block video, the one where he is driving his fast car at high speeds through the streets of San Francisco, made me wonder: What would Olde Europe directors film if they had video cameras in the 1300s?

I think it would be a knight on a horse, except the horse is running along at top speed on his front two feet, using his back to feet to kick the heads off a line of scarecrows. And the horse's front two feet are smoking, and the knight is using his sword to chop up a steady stream of viscera that a team of elite archers is shooting at him. The archers are using specially modified bows capable of launching floppy objects. And when the horse comes to a moat (still doing a full-gallop front wheelie), he backflips over the water and the knight bails off the horse and flies into France like the rocketeer and kills the King of France with his own royal guillotine.* His head rolls down the palace stairs and flies off a ramp over the English Channel. The commercial cuts to a bunch of drunk friars pigging out on turkey legs and shouting the word "England" over and over. They pound on the table, which is really solid. Bits of food fly out of their mouths and land on the camera lens. The horse skids into their fireplace and is impaled on a spit. It cooks instantly. The head of the French king flies through the tavern door, blowing it to splinters, and lands right in the mouth of the cooked horse. The force of the impact is transmitted through the horse carcass, causing it to kick a jester in the face. The horse legs fly off like drumsticks, and the friars catch them like baseballs. The title cards use all-caps gothic calligraphy, and the words are separated by ampersands instead of spaces. Instead of adding fake VCR glitches in post production, they add a flag that screams while it eats. The knight comes back home and runs circles inside a barn while six bearded dudes play their recorders.

*The commercial predates the use of the guillotine by several hundred years, so obviously this part would be impossible.
posted by compartment at 6:17 PM on March 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't understand the stick bomb part - what makes them pop up like that?

DYNAMIC TENSION!!

... must be hard work...
posted by Naberius at 7:33 PM on March 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

white_devil: "I like it when Ken Block does that in a real car. Here yt he is in San Francisco."

I gotta say, he sure did Lombard Street better than I did in my full-size, extended-cab pickup truck.

(both of these videos were massive fun.)
posted by notsnot at 7:36 PM on March 10, 2014

stick bombs [previously]
posted by lonefrontranger at 9:58 PM on March 10, 2014