Welcome to Post-Apocalyptic Media’s Car-maggeddon Tournament, where we’ve pitted popular vehicles from various wastelands against one another in a battle to the death!
There are 20 vehicles of different shapes and sizes. Who will win and be crowned the Wasteland Winner?
Note: These vehicles are from movies only and one vehicle per movie. (And no space ships or aircraft)
How will Car-maggeddon work? Each Saturday, we will pitch two vehicles against one another based on six criteria (listed below)!
Reliability/Functionality
Does the car have a tendency to break down? To lose parts? Can you sleep in it?
Offense
Does the vehicle have any weapons or other ways to take out the competition?
Defense
What armor (if any) does it have? How hard would it be for a zombie to get inside it or for someone to take out the driver from outside?
Speed
Can it outrun any threats, or does it just trundle along?
Power
Can it ram its way out of anything holding it back?
Aesthetics
This is basically a tie-breaker. In the battle, which vehicle has a higher “coolness factor” or matches best the wasteland look?
Check out the roaster below to see upcoming battles! Once every battle is complete in Round 1, the winners will move on to round 2.
Round 1, Battle 6:
The Cannibal’s Truck from The Road (2009) vs. the Scoop from Soylent Green (1973)!
What’s linking these two vastly different movies together? A delicious post-apocalyptic trope: cannibalism!
The Road has become a staple of the post-apocalyptic genre, from Cormac McCarthy’s stunning novel (2006) to Viggo Mortenson’s haunting portrayal of the father in the 2009 movie. In said movie, there is a truck. A battered, beat-up, 1980s GMC-7000 truck that is driven by a pack of ravenous cannibals. The truck is not in the best state of repair and has been stripped down to almost nothing.
Soylent Green is an iconic dystopian movie. The movie, set in 2022, shows us a dystopian world of overpopulation, climate disaster, and pollution. Hmmm … sounds familiar. We follow Charleston Heston as he uncovers the truth about the new “meat alternative” product called Soylent Green. Scoops were modified 1960s garbage trucks, used to control riots in New York City, where the movie is set. They had large “scoops” (MB Loaders) on the front that would catch people as the vehicle drove. The scoop would lift and dump the victims in a bin on the back of the truck.
The Vehicles:
The Scoop is more practical in that it has a larger storage area that you could use to sleep in or store items. While being an older vehicle, the Scoop is in much better repair than the truck from The Road, but in most other apocalypse scenarios it would be easier to find parts and repair the truck than the Scoop.
The Scoop beats the truck when it comes to defense. It’s made of thicker steel than the truck, and the MB Loader on the front could also be used as a plow to get through enemies. The taller sides of the Scoop also provide more protection from projectiles than the truck bed, which offers little to no protection.
In terms of offensive, neither truck has anything going for it. The Scoop is useful if you’re trying to capture people, but usually, cannibals aren’t portrayed as heroes.
Delicatessen aside.
In terms of speed, the truck would outpace the garbage truck. It’s light and more nimble so that it could avoid or leave the Scoop behind were they both escaping the same threat. The Scoop is heavier, so it could ram through a barricade better than the truck, though the truck wouldn’t have too hard a time with most smaller obstacles (like parked cars or fences).
While the Scoop is an iconic part of Soylent Green, one of the most dramatic scenes in The Road is when the truck blasts its way out of the tunnel, black smoke billowing behind it like a breath of a demon. With its adorable name, the Scoop is almost too 1970s silly, where the GMC’s gritty awfulness fits with the grimy and disgusting cannibal crew.
Unfortunately, the truck has asphyxiated itself on its own black smoke – it would give the Scoop a bit of a challenge, but overall, the modified garbage truck has scooped it up and into the trash.
WINNER, Round 1, Battle 6: The Scoop from Soylent Green!
Next Saturday, we’ll see who can survive longest: the Duke’s Cadillac from Escape from New York or the Bentley from Doomsday! Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook group, or on Twitter who you think will win! Throw in the hashtag #car-maggeddon !
Check out the other battles here:
Battle 1: Mad Max’s Pursuit Special vs. the Mustang from Cherry 2000
Battle 2: The Bus from Dawn of the Dead vs. the Tank from Tank Girl
Battle 3: Snowpeircer vs. Judge Dredd’s Law Master
Battle 4: The Mercury Marquis from Stake Land vs. Tallahassee’s Escalade from Zombieland
Battle 5: The Landmaster from Damnation Alley vs. the Panel Wagon from Hell Comes to Frogtown
