In today’s wacky automotive experiment, Russian YouTube host Vlad welds 3,000 nails to a rim, and tries driving on an ice bed. Here’s a look at what happens to these nails when Vlad subjects them to the full weight of a Lada 110, and to the shitbox’s dynamic loads.
The especially wacky thing about this video is how the Garage 54 ENG team went about welding the nails to the wheels. They first welded some sheetmetal to a steelie to create a flat surface on which to weld nails. From there, they literally tacked each nail to the rim. One by one. Three thousand per wheel. That must have taken forever.
But eventually, they got it done. Vlad gave his his ridiculous nail-tires a spin:
Unsurprisingly, the nails hold up to the weight of the vehicle (I say “unsurprising,” because stress is a function of force over area, and with all of those nails, there’s lots of area). They also seemed to hold up when Vlad gives the car some throttle, and navigates some shallow turns.
But upon Vlad giving the Lada some beans, the nails failed under the bending loads, and the result—shown in the top image—looks like a porcupine. Still, according to the driver, the setup did yield lots of grip, so there’s that.
Gosh would I hate to be standing nearby if one of those welds failed, especially if the car were accelerating out of a turn. Vlad might get a new nickname.