This image is one of those things that, despite all one’s better urges, catches your gaze. Catches and grabs it, hard, like a spider monkey catching meatballs. I did a reverse image search on this image and found that it’s been circulating around the dark, clammy recesses of the internet for quite a while, but somehow it’s evaded me. Until now.
I’m not made of stone. I reacted with genuine amazement at what I saw here, a picture of what appears to be a 2005-ish GMT800 Chevy Silverado with a hood that’s not just open, but actually inflated, like a paper bag you blew into or the mouth of one of the sandworms of Arrakis, which is, as you know, the universe’s only source for the spice melange. How, exactly does this happen? Is this image real? What’s the story here?
This image, which seems to have first been posted sometime around mid-2022 – came to my attention via this tweet:
Who knew this could happen? Must have been quite a surprise to the driver. pic.twitter.com/26yBgb0X8C
— Grandville Man (@Everythingscoo1) March 27, 2024
Now, it’s a striking image, and I’ve noticed something interesting about people’s reactions to the image and assumptions that are made, assumptions that appear to be confirmed in the caption of this tweet: “Must have been quite a surprise to the driver.”
I think everyone who sees this imagines some sort of scenario where some rust-induced combination of holes in the front lip of the hood and rust-degradation of the welds that hold the upper and lower skins together via the structural ribs has allowed rushing air into the front of the hood, which then inflated it like a balloon, causing the wide-mouth bass effect we see here.
I’m skeptical, though. I’m not convinced wind can do this, even 60+ mph wind, no matter how thin and rusty the metal may be. I think this happened in an attempt to open the hood, where the latch held, but the hood structure itself didn’t, and that seam yielded under the strain of the arms trying to open the hood, causing the lower skin to remain steadfastly latched while the hapless hood-opener just yanked up the upper skin, forming that, um, tent you see there.
I can’t seem to find the original source of this image to confirm just how this happened, and I think it’s particularly telling that most of us look upon this mess and immediately imagine a scenario of driving along a highway when blammo, the hood puffs up like a frightened pufferfish.
Maybe we just like the visceral drama of that scenario? And I suppose it might be possible? But, again, I’m skeptical.
I wish I knew just what it was about this image that seems to make it so much more arresting than any number of other weird-ass car disasters and failures. There are the imagined scenarios, the inherent violence and suddenness – but then there are the associations with this image, at least for me:
That hood looks just like the mouth of that colossal fish from Peter Bruegel the Elder’s 1556 drawing Big Fish Eat Little Fish.
Maybe that’s what this really is – GM’s attempt to celebrate the works of the Flemish Renaissance via poor rustproofing? If so, mission accomplished, GM!
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The wind will absolutely do that.
Ever have or see a hod come up on the highway? It will shatter a windshield and often tear the hood off the hinges.
I was in a vintage car rally with a big old Jaguar 420 sedan. We were both going pretty fast and there were a few cars between us. Suddenly cars started diving left and right and I saw a huge white hood spinning along in the highway with its hinges still intact. I dodged it and kept going. Sure enough, at the finish the Jag was proudly displaying its 4.2L overhead cam engine.
Rust and Wind, rustling wind gets a hustling, Wind Win.
Some where on the internet I saw a picture of an early 70’s Ford that did the same thing. You could see the rust on the leading edge of the hood and it peeled right open. I suspect this was the case on this one too. I have watched the hood on my square body dance from wash from a passing semi at 60mph on a 2 lane.
You silly goose clearly that truck was by the ocean and was just hungry for some krill
If anyone needed an automotive visual representation of what happened to Jason’s heart…I think this is it.
Good one!
You would be shocked how much force is exerted on the front of a vehicle by air. I fully believe this could have happened from highway speeds with a rusty hood. It had likely rusted all the way around so the lower support webbing was able to separate from the “skin” of the hood which lifted and bent. Metal can get shockingly malleable with rust and hoods aren’t especially thick to begin with. That, plus the width of that hood could easily make it act like a sail in that scenario.
Yeah, I mean if your hood latch fails at highway speeds it folds the hood back over the windshield. I don’t have any trouble believing this happened while driving.
Where are the Mythbusters when you need them? 🙂
Edit: Also, having owned a GM vehicle from this era whose hood was dented from me closing it after giving someone a jump (no good deed and all that) I can easily believe the hood had little enough structural integrity to do this.
You can even see the rust holes along the edges where they would have connected. They essentially created a parachute.
Something to be said for our Mustangs’ composite fiber hood I guess…
True! Although I have seen the results of two New Edge hoods flying up from being improperly latched at speed
Mine has been iffy since day one. It’s come up several times, including once on the track (luckily, coming out of a hairpin toward the end, so slow & I was able to move off line, limp to the pits), but each time, the safety catch has fortunately worked.
I have a good routine that seems to work, but I still go back and forth on hood pins. Have the FRPP set that will work on the SN95s.
I have a friend who had his come up at 160 in his Cobra. Somehow the roof was fine but the windshield and hood itself didn’t survive.
Plus, with how big the grille is, under-hood pressure can’t be low in these things. Once the seam starts to go, wind resistance only goes up with the hood.
“You would be shocked” – blown away, even. I’m winded just thinking about it.
The popcorn buckets were pretty cool, but I’m not sure this Dune marketing ties in to GM trucks quite as well.
Certainly possible, but I think the hood-opener wouldn’t be hapless here. Seems like most people would stop and assess the situation before they applied the force necessary to create this shape. If you do this opening the hood, I think there’s a good chance you did it on purpose and want to go viral online.
I think if this happened opening the hood they stopped when it caught and got a forklift to open it the rest of the way. No way a normal human being did that with their arms. Air pressure still seems wild but slightly more believable.
I suspect copious amounts of intoxicants preceded the bending.
Big Fish Eat Little Fish is apparently the standard English translation of the title but that’s not what the Latin says and a closer translation would clarify an otherwise easily overlooked point. It says For Big Fish, Little Fish Are Food but, to give it a bit more bite (so to speak), the word chosen for “food” also means For Big Fish, Little Fish Are Bait. Both shades of meaning can be read into the standard English translation but the ambiguity is a bit more explicit in the original Latin.
Thank you. Interesting.
Bene optime – thank you!
I choose to picture that scene as happening in Lilliput. That’s a normal-sized fish full of minnows; note how the guy cutting it open appears to be using a massive version of a table knife and the guy on the ladder is using a fondue fork.
Come for the automotive content, stay for the interpretations of ancient language.
I’m also available for geology rants.
Rock on!
Here am I waiting patiently for an excuse to pop off about the Middle Ages …
Just like Et tu Brute’ actually means, “So Brutus, I guess our dinner date is off?”
“Well – I always wanted one of them big ol’ hood scoop things like JC Whitney sells on my Chevy truck….”
Tornado? F1 wind speeds are 73-112 MPH. Might cause such damage to a rusty, weakened hood without damaging much else.
I mean, highway speeds also reach 73-112.
Imagine if you’re driving 73-112 mph INTO 73-122 mph winds, eh?
David Tracy Needs to buy that hood, put the largest googly eyes he can find on it, and make it an Autopian Mascot!
It hungers for rust! (◎◯◎)
Exactly my first thought. This thing needs googly eyes
Listen, I’ve had like 4 of these trucks, and sold dozens and dozens of them. The gmt800 is the official vehicle of inexplicable wierdness, yet maintains an absolute refusal to die. They’re like a lovable comic relief character that despite (or because of) sheer incompetence and mediocrity, manages to be the savior of a story.
GMT800s are a national treasure.
Can confirm, my roommate has a 1500HD which never starts the first crank, but it always starts the second. We have no clue why, but it runs. It’s rusting from everywhere, and concerningly so, but it passes inspection, and it runs and runs and runs, missing tailgate handle trim and all.
GMs run crappy forever. Just close it up, add a few bungee cords, and press on.
Just looks like a BMW grille to me.
Maybe it’s fake and we’ve all been hoodwinked.
There are millions of these on the road and a lot of them are in rust promoting climates. So I’d expect this “failure” to be more than one in many millions if it was occurring without outside intervention.
While I don’t know what would cause this especially in a fuel injected engine, it looks more like a very explosive backfire than anything wind related. The hood is only attached at 3 points, the two hinges and the latch, and all 3 are on the much thicker stronger inner structure and not on the sheet metal outside, so it started balooning and then the front seam finally gave way giving us all the ultimate ram air intake.
So that is where the botox lips look originated…
Now I’m afraid to see what the back end of the truck looks like. It’s probably a dually.
It’s 2024 and most men still think “Botox” means any kind of cosmetic procedure short of major plastic surgery.
This is actually just a scene from Disney’s live action remake of Cars. Here we see the scene where Mater loses his hood.
om nom nom nom
My takeaway . . . the Chevy Silverado hood is just a pita made out of sheet metal.
Or a truck made if pita?
I think some of the interior is made of hummus.
Scoop for the world’s crappiest jet engine?
Well, we know it’s not a Boeing part, since they don’t make engines and it’s still attached to the vehicle.
Peter Bruegel the Elder was clearly a practitioner of the psychedelics
A lot of the painters from that period and area sure seem to have been fond of the shrooms. Exhibit A: Anything by Hieronymus Bosch.
Not since the emissions scandal with VAG. I use Denso when I can.
Thanks, every time I crawl out of that rabbit hole, I get kicked back in
Pedestrian airbag?
If the bottom panel remained latched, sure it could happen. LeMans comes to mind. If the subject vehicle were doing 85 or so, there’s way more than enough force. Someone smarter than I could do the math, but numbers would surely bear out enough energy to origami that hood all day long.
Yup, my thought too.
Given how easy it is to visibly bend a hood if you push down on it while closed, a small seam of rust opening up at 70+ mph, and google tells me its somewhere around a single PSI or so, which could easily snowball as the seam opens to cause the hood to balloon like that.