An Australian gender reveal went horribly wrong when a car performing a huge burnout caught fire.
Gender reveal parties are kinda weird. Not that it’s weird to want to tell friends and family the biological sex of the incoming bundle of joy in an emotionally meaningful way--that’s understood. What’s weird is that these gender reveal parties often go to extreme lengths to conceal the gender and then reveal it in a “fun and amusing” way.
And often those reveals can go horribly wrong. Balloons are a typical gender reveal tool that fails to cooperate, such as this gender reveal balloon that decided not to pop and instead float away into the upper atmosphere. Or this balloon that popped a little too soon.
Even when gender reveal parties go completely right, they’re still weird.
But none so weird as in Australia, where gender reveal burnouts are a thing. Apparently, the folks down under have created special gender reveal tires that emit a colored smoke when you rip a righteous drift: blue for boy, pink for girl. They’re a little more expensive than economy tires--$125 each, according to Motor1--and they’re legal for the moment although that seems likely to change based on the video below.
Queensland Police released this video from April of 2018 to convince Australians not to purchase these tires. Drone footage from a gender reveal party in Brisbane shows an HSV Senator producing plumes of blue smoke thanks to these special tires and its 550-hp 6.2-L V8 engine.
After what seems way too much time turning rubber into blue smoke, the tires both ignite simultaneously and burn the car to the ground.
CNN reports that the 29-year-old driver was a friend of the father and was actually convicted of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, which means he had to pay a fine on top of losing his $60,000 performance sedan.
These tires are fairly common in Australia, but authorities are warning people not to use them lest they turn their fun party into a car’s funeral.