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?
The Final Battle:
The Tank from Tank Girl, the Landmaster from Damnation Alley, and Frankenstein’s Monster from Death Race!
Due to the set-up of the Car-Maggeddon tournament, we have three remaining vehicles vying for a spot as number one!
First, an unsurprising contender: the Tank from Tank Girl! The M5A1 Stuart tank is not only strong in an offensive and defensive sense, but its gaudy decorations give it a raider-esque visage that suits the genre very well.
Second, another cult classic: the Landmaster from Damnation Alley! This amphibious vehicle is packing heat, defensive armor, and a surprising secret ability. But will that be enough to win?
Third, the underdog: Frankenstein’s Monster from Death Race! The Mustang GT is decked out in all sorts of battle gear and weapons. Will its speed be enough to save it from the two larger contenders?
To make it fair, each vehicle will be ranked 1, 2, or 3 in each category, and the vehicle with the least points wins!
Cue the music and start your engines! The final battle begins!
The Vehicles:
As usual, our first round comes down to how practical the vehicle would be as a home in the wasteland. As seen in previous battles, the tank is not the best choice. While I will always love the chairs affixed to the top, it’s not a great place to live for one person, let alone multiple. It’s also not easy to find parts to repair a tank. Frankenstein’s Monster fares a little better, given it’s designed for two people, but there is no back seat, and while Mustang parts aren’t that rare, the car has been so heavily modified it would require a special garage to work on it. That leaves the old Landmaster, who, surprisingly, wins this round! Not only is it armored and can fit many people, but it’s resistant to radiation and designed to be repaired using parts from transport trucks. It was made to live in the wasteland!
Next up comes speed. This is an absolute no-brainer for the winner. Obviously, the Mustang GT is much much faster than the other two. But can the Stuart outrun the Landmaster? According to IMDB Trivia, it can go 55 miles per hour. Unfortunately, the tank is maxed out at 36 miles per hour. As such, the poor tank, which one would assume going into this competition was a likely winner, hasn’t been faring too well this battle.
Power (or ramming capability) comes next! Smashing your way through barricades, fiery vehicles, walls, and zombies is a more common occurrence than you’d think, so this is an important consideration. Despite all its steel plating, horsepower, and torque, Frankenstein’s Monster is still no match for the other two larger vehicles. As such, it’s down to the tank versus the Landmaster. While being longer, the tank was designed for this sort of thing and could burst through almost anything at top speed. As a result, the tank is roaring back into this battle!
While it doesn’t really fit here, we need to talk about the bonus features of the Landmaster. Not only is it amphibious, meaning it can go underwater and escape, hide, or plan an ambush, the Landmaster’s design allowed it to survive a 25-foot jump with no damage. Neither the tank nor the Mustang could survive that sort of fall unscathed.
Finally, we’re on to the fun stuff! When it comes to offensive capabilities (firepower), we’re in for a fiery good time! In this case, it might be easier to list off what they all have:
Tank:
- 105 mm gun M6 gun
- Two 0.30 cal (7.62 mm) Browning M1919A4 machine guns (front hull/anti-aircraft machine gun on the turret)
Landmaster
- Two top-mounted rocket launchers
- Four side-mounted autocannons
- Two front-mounted retractable bazookas
- Two front-mounted flame throwers
Frankenstein’s Monster
- Two mounted .30 cal mini-guns (3,000 rounds per minute)
- Flamethrowers
- Napalm
And I thought these two packed a lot of firepower!
Looking at the list, it’s clear Frankenstein’s Monster is just a little bit outgunned. And, surprisingly, despite the size of the tank’s weapons, the Landmaster has more of them (and has more space in the vehicle for multiple people to attend to the firearms). So in this regard, the Landmaster wins!
Yet, you can have all the firepower in the world, but that won’t help you if your opponent has the proper defense!
For this final battle, we have to look at the specifics of who is attacking with what. Starting with Frankenstein’s Monster, it’s covered with armored plating, and, based on the movie (when it goes up against the Dreadnaught), it can withstand flamethrowers and machine-gun fire, but there’s no way it would take a blast from either the tank or the Landmaster’s bigger guns. In truth, the only reason Frankenstein’s Monster even withstands the 12.7mm rounds in the movie is due to a convenient thing called “plot armor,” so, in a real wasteland situation, the sheet metal they used wouldn’t do much.
Next, the Landmaster. This vehicle has 10mm steel plating, which can withstand pretty much anything short of armor-piercing rounds. Assuming the tank and Frankenstein’s Monster do not have this type of ammo with their .30 machine guns, the Landmaster would be fine! At least until the tank’s 105mm big gun came out to play, which would blast a hole right through it and probably out the other side.
Then we have the tank. Where the other two had the same thickness of plating, the tank has 38 mm of armor on the upper front hull, 44 mm on the lower front hull, 51 mm on the gun mantlet, 38 mm on the turret sides, 25 mm on the hull sides, and 25 mm on the hull rear. But even the 25mm areas are double what the other two cars have! As such, it would take a big gun to take out the tank. Unfortunately for the tank, the Landmaster does have such a gun. Its two bazookas are fit for the job.
Yet, the bazookas would require a direct hit to the sides, where the armor is weakest, to penetrate the tank. As such, because it requires such precision, the tank is the best suited to withstand attack.
Lastly, we have looks. As this comes down to personal preference at this point, and all three of these vehicles are bound to turn heads, I’m not going to give it a ranking, but I will give you pointers. If you want to be both impenetrable and somewhat quirky, go with the tank. If you want the classic aesthetic of 70s apocalyptica, go for the Landmaster. And if you want to look like a straight-up badass, go with the Mustang.
After all of this, here are the final results!
Tank – 10
Landmaster – 8
Frankenstein’s Monster – 12
It may look clunky and somewhat dated, but the Landmaster is indeed the master of all the land. It is THE vehicle you want to get ahold of if any of the numerous possible post-apocalyptic scenarios unfold. You’ll just have to find one.
We hope you enjoyed this mini-series! If you’re just joining us now, check out the other battles and let us know what you think on our Facebook group, or on Twitter! Throw in the hashtag #car-maggeddon
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
Battle 6: The Cannibals’ Truck from The Road vs. the “Scoop” from Soylent Green
Battle 7: The Duke’s Cadillac from Escape from New York vs. the Bentley from Doomsday
Battle 8: The Medusa from Bellflower vs. Frankenstein’s Monster from Death Race
Battle 9: Bill the Mule from The Postman vs. the Boat from Waterworld
Battle 10: The War Rig from Fury Road vs. the Green Goblin from Maximum Overdrive
Round 2, Battle 1: Mad Max’s Ford Falcon Pursuit Special vs. Tallahasse’s Escalade from Zombieland
Round 2, Battle 2: The Bentley from Doomsday vs. The War Rig from Fury Road
Round 2, Battle 3: The Landmaster from Damnation Alley vs. the Boat from Waterworld
Round 2, Battle 4: The Scoop from Soylent Green vs. the Tank from Tank Girl
Round 2, Battle 5: The Law Master from Judge Dredd vs. Frankenstein’s Monster from Death Race!
Round 3, Battle 2 (Semi-Final): The War Rig from Fury Road vs. the Tank from Tank Girl!
