So, many of you may be old enough to remember the photo of Charles Atlas pulling a PRR railcar:

FORD has decided to try to pull the same stunt over a new generation with this advertisement video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAlIfWcCJdI" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAlIfWcCJdI

In the video, they pull a bunch of railcars with their new F150 Lightning electric pickup truck. 

For you that have never seen this gag before, it plays upon people who really don't have a clue about the physics of a railcar, and they reinforce it by having a bunch of guys there to observe.

They pull these railcars with the truck, and everyone is amazed... and the joke is on you...

The amount of force it takes to move those railcars, on a straight and level track, is incredibly small.   If there's no curves, no switches, and no grade, my '02 Camry will pull 'em just as well.

When I was teaching at railways, we'd hand-push a 3-car consist of 180,000lb passenger cars in and out of the shop several times a day.

Notice the tow strap they use... it's an ordinary strap.  Only needs to have about 1500lbs of tensile strength to do this demonstration, as they're not accellerating very hard (that would break the truck).   Just give it a little and be patient.

I remember the Charles Atlas advertisements well

When I worked in sawmills we filled rail cars with wood chips; the chip car tenders had pry bars that they used to get those loaded cars moving, then they could push them along. They did need to ensure that no debris was on the tracks.

Allis's advertisement didn't make any silly claims about how 'never done before' or 'no other has done it', nor did they imply that it was any significant feat... but notice that the 7080 is DRIVING ON THE TIES... and furthermore, pulling it's consist around a curve, on some single-track, not in a level railyard.

The F150 Lightning advertisement is very intentionally misleading, and that's all there is to it.

steve(ill) wrote: im with WF... NOTHING miss leading about it.  They SHOW it pulling a train car.. I did that.. Not photo shopped. ......... If you dont understand HOW that happens, its not their fault.

Yes, that's called 'playing on one's ignorance', and in doing so, the company insults the intelligence of those who DO understand basic physics, and in doing so, they seriously discredit their brand..

Listen to the dialogue... listen to what she says.  It is very clear.

Dodge didn't make The Dukes of Hazzard, and when Bo and Luke were shown flying the 120ish like-painted Satellite/Challengers to (what was clearly) destruction, you couldn't go to your local Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge and BUY one... the closest you could get... was This:

 

All 110hp of it... and Daisy would NOT be willing to sit in the back seat

Of course, with a hair-dryer shoved under the hood, it could manage 0-50 in 5.5 seconds...

And they said 0-50... because at that time, going to 60 would be breaking the law...

(yes, they mandated that EVERY SPEEDOMETER read to 85mph... and not an ounce more.  They also advertised '37 Est highway/24 EPA es. mpg"... and my personal experience was that, on the absolute best day, with a tailwind, tires pumped up hard... and using a feather on the foot-feed, that it's lesser-fancy sibling could get 26, mebbie 27 on the highway, and around 18 in town.... but that's 'epa' friendly numbers, right?

Had a lot of the 2.2, and 2.5ltr four cylinder engines and damned reliable for me. My 1989 Dodge Spirit with a 2.5ltr turbocharged engine ran 399,577 miles before getting stuck in a snow bank and the inexperienced driver destroyed the automatic transmission. I had sold that car at 395,000 and some change to a good customer's new driver daughter as the law of averages.....

That car was rated a bonafide piece of shi* by most of the magazines of the day and I always got 25mpg or better with it over 270K miles I owned it. Not once did it let me down someplace unable to drive home.

I purchased it as a non running bank repo with a dragged off exhaust. After installing a Mopar Performance computer, and Borla exhaust system, all I did was drive it like it was stolen. Once finding out how bad it "torque steered" under hard acceleration, a "Torsen" differential took care of most of that.

Did not burn, or leak oil when sold either.

Going back to those "Like a Rock" Chevrolet commercials I lost interest just as soon as seeing "air" under all six tires of a brand new one ton being bounced around so hard. Like the average guy is going to do that and trust something ain't gonna get *d up in doing so.