Weird Soviet tractor transforms into even weirder tractor

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/25/weird-soviet-tractor-transform.html

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In Soviet Union, Transformers were exactly what met the eye.

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The design might have been inspired by road-rail vehicles.

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Video link for the BBS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gri-EJijM2U

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I’m just going to file that with the soviet flying tank…

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What is the book he’s holding and flashes the cover for about 1/10th of second, after saying the inventor’s name which I didn’t quite catch?

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Looks like Mover of Men and Mountains by R.G. LeTourneau

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That thing would have been perfect on an episode of Top Gear with James May driving it.

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That’s one very impressive machine! But I guess at one point someone figured out that it kinda contradicted the original idea, which was to make a vehicle for operating on soft soil/subsoil. And that making a light tracked vehicle that would fit on a conventional flatbed lorry was not as cool but much more practical.

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You would have thought that fitting a track temporarily to a tractor’s existing wheels was easier

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While we’re talking interesting Soviet machines, there’s always this:

But only one person is barmy enough to build their own version:

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Brilliantly barmy.

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Might have needed a series, though, rather than the one episode.

ETA @orenwolf - are you still interested in knowing which posts have comments links that go back to the post? It is still happening on some posts. And now I find that on this post when I went to comments from blog view and tried to make a comment by replying to someone, the reply button was greyed out so I could not actually reply/comment but when I did it here from BBS it worked fine. Also, I cannot PM you (or Rob) as when I try the button is also greyed out. Something is more than a bit snafu…

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Or Guy Martin?
Or Allen Millyard?

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Guy Martin, yes, definitely. (Never heard of the other fellow.)

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You should check the name on Youtube. He’s one of only a few mechanical savants who like to take existing mechanical machines (mostly engines) and change them. As in make things that do not exist anywhere else in the world. He’s built one of the world’s largest v-twin motorcycle engines using cylinders and heads from a WW2 era bomber (Pratt and Whitney) and even a new design and completion of a V12 powered motorcycle that looks way too scary to ride. (admit it, would you ride a bike capable of breaking the land speed record on the street?)

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I’d watch that, too.

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Not only that but he rarely uses machine tools, as an apprentice toolmaker he learned to cut using a hacksaw to 10/1000ths of an inch, so he just cuts crankcases by hand and welds them up.

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