Bigfoot and the Car Crush That Changed Everything
Bob Chandler Just Wanted to See If the Truck Could Do It
Bob Chandler had built a very large pickup.
That was basically the whole idea.
The original BIGFOOT began as a 1974 Ford F-250 Chandler kept modifying to demonstrate parts sold through his Midwest Four Wheel Drive shop near St. Louis. Bigger tires required stronger axles. Stronger axles invited more power. More power gave the suspension another reason to complain.
Soon the tires that had once looked absurdly large started looking suspiciously ordinary.
By the early 1980s, BIGFOOT had become an attraction wherever Chandler took it. People stared underneath a Ford pickup that had wandered so far from the factory brochure that the original salesman probably would have denied knowing it.
There was only one problem.
After everybody finished looking at the thing, what was it supposed to do?
Then Bob Saw a Toyota
One Saturday morning, Chandler was watching television with BIGFOOT crewman Jim Kramer when a program showed trucks playing in the mud. One of them climbed partly onto a junk car sticking out of the ground.
Bob watched it struggle and reached the sort of conclusion that has kept garages busy for a century.
BIGFOOT could do better.
No promoter had asked. No crowd was waiting. Nobody had conducted a survey to determine whether America had an unmet need to watch one pickup flatten another automobile.
Bob simply wanted to know whether BIGFOOT could drive completely over one.
Kramer knew a fellow with some ground where they could find out.
That was enough planning.
Two Cars Became Test Equipment
In 1981, Chandler and his crew hauled two junk cars into a field. BIGFOOT came along with a video camera nobody yet realized was about to become more valuable than either car.
Bob lined up the truck and rolled toward the first automobile. The huge front tires climbed onto the sheet metal, the roof surrendered its argument with gravity and the windshield discovered it had not been designed as a load-bearing structure.
BIGFOOT kept going.
Over the first car.
Over the second.
No ramp, no special effects and no fellow with a headset explaining that engineers had carefully calculated the stunt.
Just several tons of modified Ford treating two automobiles as badly maintained pavement.
Chandler turned around and did some more. At one point BIGFOOT sat on top of the crushed cars as though the experiment needed a final photograph for the report.
Experiment complete.
BIGFOOT could drive over cars.
The Video Found the Wrong Audience
The tape went back to Midwest Four Wheel Drive as promotional material. Customers could watch BIGFOOT flatten junkers while standing among the tires, axles and suspension pieces Chandler actually hoped to sell.
That made sense.
Then a motorsports promoter saw it.
He was not especially interested in which differential BIGFOOT used. He had noticed something more profitable.
People might buy tickets to watch that.
He wanted Chandler to crush cars again in front of a crowd.
A private experiment had just volunteered itself for show business.
Bob Wasn’t Looking for a Career in Flattening Cars
Chandler and his wife Marilyn had worked to keep BIGFOOT family-friendly. The truck demonstrated four-wheel-drive hardware, appeared at events and drew crowds because it was enormous enough to make an ordinary pickup look underfed.
Crushing cars felt different. It was destructive, a little carnival-like and not quite the respectable equipment demonstration Bob had been hauling around.
So Chandler resisted.
The promoter kept asking.
Eventually Bob agreed to one public car crush. BIGFOOT would climb over the cars, everybody would enjoy the foolishness once, and afterward the truck could return to standing around politely while people admired the suspension.
That plan lasted until the crowd saw it.
The Crowd Settled the Argument
The public crush took place at an event in Jefferson City, Missouri. BIGFOOT lined up, Chandler gave it throttle and the giant Ford climbed onto the waiting automobiles.
The crowd lost its mind.
People had already seen BIGFOOT. They knew it was huge. They liked the tires, the noise and the machinery underneath.
What they had not seen was BIGFOOT doing something with all of it.
A giant truck standing still was interesting.
A giant truck using an automobile as a stepping stone was a show.
Promoters understood immediately. From then on they did not merely want BIGFOOT to appear.
They wanted something parked underneath it.
Now the Truck Had to Survive the Act
Bookings multiplied. Car crushing became part of BIGFOOT’s act, larger venues followed and television spread the spectacle beyond anybody who happened to wander into Chandler’s shop.
Other builders noticed because motorsports has never needed written instructions after somebody proves a crowd will pay for something.
Soon simply parking an oversized truck beside a tractor pull and letting spectators count the lug nuts was not enough.
The truck had to perform.
That changed the machinery too. A giant pickup expected to attack rows of cars every weekend needed tires large enough to climb, axles and driveline parts stout enough to survive the abuse, and suspension capable of returning for another show after gravity had finished participating.
BIGFOOT moved toward enormous 66-inch flotation tires. Other builders followed with increasingly specialized frames, stronger drivetrains and more power.
The shop truck was turning into purpose-built entertainment machinery.
Then Somebody Put Two of Them Together
Once several monster trucks existed, promoters performed the next inevitable experiment.
Put two in the same place.
That produced an obvious question.
Which one was faster?
Racing followed. Racing produced rivalries, championships and machinery designed to do considerably more than crawl over parked sedans one at a time.
That progression looks obvious now.
It was not obvious when Bob Chandler drove into a field with two junk cars and no paying audience.
Bob Had Accidentally Found the Product
Chandler did not crush those first cars because he thought spectators would buy tickets. There were no spectators, no ticket booth and no promoter standing nearby calculating concession sales.
He had watched another truck crawl partly onto an automobile and wanted to know whether BIGFOOT could go all the way over.
So he tried it.
Somebody had enough sense to bring a camera.
A promoter had enough sense to understand the tape.
Then the crowd supplied the business analysis.
No questionnaires. No focus groups. No fellow in a necktie explaining market segmentation.
Put junk cars under BIGFOOT and listen.
The answer was fairly loud.
BIGFOOT Found Its Act
Before the crush, BIGFOOT was something people came to see. Its attraction was size, excess and the mechanical spectacle of a pickup modified far beyond anything required to bring home groceries.
After the crush, BIGFOOT was something people came to watch.
That was the important discovery.
A display vehicle only has to arrive. An act has to perform, improve and give the crowd a reason to come back when the promoter books it again.
None of that was on Chandler’s agenda when those two junk cars were hauled into a field in 1981.
He wanted to know whether BIGFOOT could drive over them.
It could.
Two junk cars got flattened.
BIGFOOT found its act.
Monster trucks found theirs.