Ken Block is at it again, climbing China’s Tianmen Mountain in Climbkhana-Two, Electric Boogaloo.
That last part may have been appended by us, but we really think it was a missed opportunity.
Welcome to Tianmen Mountain, a long, winding road that has 99 hairpin turns. You’ve probably seen it before in movies, games, or television. It’s a pretty famous part of the world, and insanely dangerous too. If you manage to crash over the concrete barrier, it’s a long fall to the bottom.
So it only makes sense for Ken Block to drive his 900+ horsepower Hoonitruck up the mountain and drift around every turn.
In case you need a refresher, the Hoonitruck is a 1977 Ford F-150 that has very little of the original pickup left in it. Instead of the big V8, it has the 3.5-L twin-turbo EcoBoost V6 taken straight out of the Ford GT Le Mans racer but tuned to produce ludicrous power. That's 914 hp and 702 lb-ft of torque, to be precise.
Other upgrades include a new intake manifold that was 3D-printed by Ford Performance, an out-the-front exhaust, a carbon fiber dashboard, custom 20-inch fifteen52 Turbomac HD Wheels, and a Saedev 6-speed transmission that Block definitely works hard throughout his climb.
How hard? Well, it's 99 turns, and drifting around each one means that he has to get back up to speed for the brief straights in order to have enough velocity to drift through the next curve. And for the most part, he performs the feat with the sort of precision that you normally associate with stunt flying.
Then again, the stakes are pretty much the same. One wrong move and they'd both plummet to their deaths.
You can tell by the tracks already present on the road’s surface that Block performed a few attempts at the climb before getting the perfect run. We don’t blame him for the practice given the risk involved, but it does ruin a bit of the magic. It’s also not quite as fast as Volkswagen’s run up Tianmen Mountain last September, but it certainly is a lot more fun to watch.