France’s Vilebrequin are back with another remote controlled car and a concept that is guaranteed to end in destruction. This time, Vilebrequin is asking if sticking wings on top of a car will make it fly.
The question is foolhardy from the very beginning, as cars move because of their wheels, which need to be in contact with the ground in order to work. Once a car lifts off, it loses propulsion, and immediately slows down.
But, with a busted BMW 5-Series and the wings from a seaplane, the team at Vilebrequin wanted to see if you could at least make a car glide a little bit. To do that, they fitted the car with a remote control system, and constructed an absolutely massive, eight-meter-tall (26 ft) ramp. That, they say, helped make this the most expensive video they’ve ever produced.
Read: What Happens When You Crash A Car Into A Wall At Nearly 100 MPH
Made up of multiple shipping containers, the ramp wound up costing nearly six-figures. But that wasn’t their first idea. Initially, they wanted a ramp made of just one shipping container, and just 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) tall.
That’s because their first idea was to actually drive the car themselves and land in a pile of cardboard boxes. After pricing it out, though, they realized that it would cost more to buy that many cardboard boxes than it did to build this ramp, as well as the remote control driving setup.
Although it was a compromise, they figured the result would be spectacular, anyway. And they were right. In the end, the team managed to hit the ramp at around 120 km/h (75 mph), the car flew 64 meters (210 feet), and came to a stop after 156 meters (512 feet).
Although the wings didn’t do much to help the car fly, the test did at least prove one thing: a 210-foot jump is probably the fastest way to remove an engine from a car.
