Red Dragon Ford 350 Monster Truck joins Top Gear Live +video

Red Dragon Ford 350 Monster Truck joins Top Gear Live

If you enjoy Top Gear on the TV, you’ll love Top Gear Live. No, you don’t get the ‘road-trips’, but you do get complete petrolhead mayhem of a sort the BBC probably couldn’t live with on air.

Case in point is this year’s addition to Top Gear Live madness, a 1308bhp custom-built Ford 350 Super Duty Monster Truck which stands 11′ high and shoots fridge-freezers – and anything else weighing up to 650kgs – 80 yards from an air cannon mounted on the back.

Top Gear Live first used the Red Dragon Monster Truck – hand-built over three months by former European Monster Truck Champion, Rob Williams – at Top Gear Live in South Africa last year, and so successful was it that it will feature at this year’s Top Gear Live shows at the NEC in Birmingham and ExCel London in November. And everything about the Red Dragon is definitely monster.

Powered by a custom-built, 9.5 litre supercharged Chevy lump, Red Dragon has 1308bhp but, more incredibly, an earth-moving 1040lbs/ft of torque on tap. The axles are from a 50-tonne crane and they shift the power to the monster wheels, wheels which measure 6ft x 4ft and weigh a quarter of a tonne each. And fuel consumption is measured in yards per gallon – it does 50-60ypg.

The Red Dragon Monster Truck’s pièce de résistance isn’t just its monster power and size, it’s the 600psi air cannon on the back which can shoot anything up to 650kg (the bumph from Top Gear says 650kg – can that be right?) up to 80 yards. An ability the Top Gear Live show will make the most of, as you can see in the video below.

We haven’t been to Top Gear Live for a couple of years, but it was a hoot. It’s come on a chunk since then and now includes not just stuff like the Red Dragon but an Indoor Track, exhibition and Live Action Arena.

It’s worth a look if petrol runs through your veins – starts at around £50 a ticket.

By Cars UK