A lot of people are obsessed with scale-model restoration projects but also enjoy watching crash tests of vehicles, but what happens if you combine a painstaking creation process with destruction? A YouTube channel that recently caught our attention replicates different kinds of crash tests in real life, using clay models of cars after showing us how they were made.
The channel is called Clay_Cars_Creator and has 12k subscribers, which is not much judging from the time and effort invested for each video. The earlier content was posted two years ago, proving that the builder made quite a progress on how close the scale models look compared to the original.
Clay is widely used during the development of production vehicles as a great tool for evaluating and refining the selected design proposals. It is also used in transportation design courses where students create scale models of their thesis projects. However, everyone that tried playing with plasticine knows how hard it is to replicate the lines and curves of an automobile – especially without the right training. Despite the challenges, the creator of this channel mastered the skill after long hours of practice.
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The most impressive examples of his work include a Toyota AE86, a few different BMW models, a Tesla Cybertruck, and a GAZelle Next van. The latter took 52 hours in 7 days to build using blueprints and photos as a reference. The resulting model is extremely detailed in regards to the painted exterior, lighting units, cabin, engine bay, and underbody. While most sculptors would put it on a shelf and move on to the next project, Clay_Cars_Creator decided to destroy it in a spectacular manner, as he does with most of his builds.
There is something magical about the forces of nature and how they can deform the body of an automobile. This is why crash test videos from EuroNCAP and IIHS gather thousands or millions of views. While metal or plastic scale cars are too small, lightweight, and rigid to show a similar amount of destruction, clay is a different story, producing quite realistic results.
Using a R/C pickup with a special attachment or a traditional pole, Clay_Cars_Creator hits the vehicles from different angles, showing the extent of the damage. As painful as it is to watch the detailed clay models being squished, the videos are interesting, to say the least. Hopefully, the channel owner kept some of his best work intact, next to the pile of wreckage. Below you can watch the detailed building process of a previous-gen BMW X5 M, followed by a gallery of screenshots of the aftermath of this unconventional crash testing.
