If you’re a fan of dirty combustion noises and heart-racing shenanigans, you may have felt a bit underwhelmed by Electrikhana, Ken Block’s EV Gymkhana film released a few months ago. Fear not, real-life action figure Travis Pastrana is here to liven things up again. This time, Gymkhana goes full Florida Man, set to cult classic Cars With The Boom.
Let’s start with the machine of the hour, Pastrana’s wild Subaru GL Wagon with active aerodynamics and an absurd amount of power. The thing cranks out more than 860 ponies, a wild figure for a boxer engine, and an equally wild figure for anything that looks like a tumble dryer from the Reagan years.
The visual gags start early, with Pastrana pulling off a 50:50 grind roughly a minute and twelve seconds into the video. While rail grinds like this are normally done unintentionally by clueless drivers, a successful, intentional attempt reaches deep down into our Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland nostalgia and sprinkles a little sauce on it. Far out, man.
The next big stunt looks like it’ll be a simple set of donuts until you see a monster truck perched precariously atop a Jersey barrier. Ryan Anderson, the driver of monster truck Son-uva-Digger (that’s certainly a name), then uses the barrier as a kicker to huck the truck’s rear tires in the air and start balancing on the front wheels alone. It’s an insane bit of car control that’s far more interesting than the donuts themselves, yet because of how wild this Gymkhana film is, it doesn’t completely steal the show.
After a quick jump over a set of railway tracks, YouTube’s own Cleetus McFarland makes an appearance in his brawny El Camino drag car, smoking up gumballs before throwing the laundry on the street. Deploying a parachute when not on a drag strip is so wonderfully absurd, plus the cameo is a great example of fan service.
Once the ‘chute is pulled, Pastrana pulls off some more sweet tight proximity skids before racing a goddamn jet down a causeway. That would be awesome enough, but then it leads into a triple-digit huck over a short bridge, culminating in a massive nose-down landing. The sheer amount of speed and height here qualifies for weapons-grade sketchiness and looks like it could’ve gone bad in so many ways. Can someone say spinal compression?
In case that jump isn’t enough, Pastrana follows that up with more hangtime over a bridge that just doesn’t exist. Think Speed without the bomb. Oh, and he came in too slow, he’d crash-land into the helicopter hovering in the deck gap, leading to a thoroughly-minced Subaru.
In another bout of nostalgia, Pastrana skips his Subaru across a manmade pond, a bit like in that iconic Countach scene from Speed Zone. In case you thought that the water was shallow, Hoonigan claims it was eight to 10 feet deep, so this appears to be a genuine car skip. It’s classic Pastrana, considering he’s known for skipping dirt bikes across pools, and a stunt so outrageous it feels strong against the insane bridge sequence.
Of course, this thing’s one huge Subaru ad, so it finishes up with some mad decent hoonage of the new WRX including a proper rallycross jump. I doubt the stock suspension liked that terribly much, but it’s still awesome to see. There’s just such a sense of fun to this Gymkhana project that felt a bit absent from Electrikhana.
While there’s still plenty of the tight-proximity action Gymkhana built a name on, these films have a time-honored tradition of visual gags that felt so sorely missed in Electrikhana. From the mannequin in Gymkhana 2 to this latest round of stunts, all the big and little moments of silliness show that cars should be fun more than anything else. If you’re not having a laugh, then what’s the point? While Electrikhana was a solid showcase of high-performance EV capabilities, I’d love to see the Gymkhana team ham it up like they’ve done with this latest edition.
All screenshots courtesy of Hoonigan
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Was his hard parachute landing at the end just a result of trying to turn away from the trees? He smacked the ground pretty hard
Most insane car commercial ever! Totally SICK!!!
If I was in his team I’d be working on that active aero to try and land flatter rather than full on faceplant the car into tarmac… came very close to another visit to the paramedics there.
Also, thanks for sharing the video but do we really need it explained to us in writing? It’s a bit like the old adage about explaining a joke.
I appreciated being able to read the article first, to see if it is worth my time to watch the video.
How the front end of that held up on the first bridge jump and pond skim, we may never know.
That POV angle of the bridge jump was the first OH SHIT! moment I’ve had watching one of these videos that I can think of. There have been a lot of HOLY SHIT! moments, but I can’t think of one where I thought things were about to go really pear-shaped. It’s been fun watching other people watch that moment, they all have the same reaction.
I jumped up out of my chair and said “OH SHIT”.
I mean, it is Travis. I could totally see them finishing a Gymkhana with him stuffing the nose on a jump and cartwheeling the car…
I think he’d have been better off just hanging up in the trees. Turning is dropping or something like that. Trees are mean though…
He’s very used to dropping and hurting himself so I guess it’s a case of going with what you know.
I wonder why Ken isn’t doing them anymore?
Ken drives Audi now.
Block still does this. They have two different Khana series going now.
At the end of the Amazon series Gymkhana Files (highly recommended) he mention that he’s been doing the stunts for ten years and he loves it, but wants to branch out and do something different and new. That was part of him passing the torch to Travis.
And, that’s pretty much what my 87 GL wagon looked like in my head. As I started driving in early 80s, I’m all about boxy flares
Umm, Sir? Looks like you need an alignment, and a bigger chute.
Watching that kind of ridiculously precise driving just puts a huge smile on my face. But I gotta say, I think they missed an opportunity not titling it “Club Shred” instead of “Vacation Shred”.
Anyway, huge props to Travis and all the other drivers and pilots in this incredible video.
This one was so sendy. The nose down jump and water skip were incredible sends. And some of the shots in the credits were really cool too.
This was SO much better than the electric one. I watched the video they made about the hoonitron and they sounded super stoked about everything but the visuals just weren’t there. I realize they were trying not to wreck the hoonitron but it was more of a display of sheer power than anything else.
Travis is awesome.
This is probably the most plays Bunny and Tigre will ever see from this song…
This put such a silly grin on my face. Electrikhana was impressive in its own right, but Gymkhana just isn’t Gymkhana without some absurd noises.
Yep, Gymkhana just isn’t the same without the BRAAAPs and all the turbo noises.