Ok here’s something I’ve never seen before that dates back to pre-World War II. This contraption consists of a tractor and some form of corkscrew drive system. After a bit of research, it appears that this invention originates from Russia. Call it Russian mechanized genius/madness, you decide. Via – LiveLeak
BOLL
Ever since seeing a model of a screw-mobile in an RC Model magazine as a kid I have wanted to see one in action. I actually saw a video of it last week, but this one was much longer 
yay!
Derka
Here’s a much bigger (military?) version of it.
http://www.motorcities.com/vehicle/07FRC291706341.html
renderanything
Now that’s screwy.
People still make vehicles like this. Many of them have been proposed for cross arctic expeditions because the ice screws with their large surface area can double as pontoons when the ice thins and a water crossing is inevitable.
Babycakes
I don’t live in the snow, but this looks like a handy thing to have if you do live in the snow.
tantotommy
This vehicle is based on the old Fordson Standard tractor. I believe it is Henry Ford 1st driving it! The Russians copied the idea, and they also copied the tractor design for Stalin’s farm mechanisation programme.
Jaxx
It has several advantages over treads, pontoons as mentioned before, but also, the crazy thing can move sideways. There are forklifts that use a variation of the screw drive design.
soubriquet
I’ve been interested in these screw-drive machines for a few years now. Whilst there has been a lot of research and development work in Russia, leading to a number of very able vehicles, I’ve seen nothing to suggest any russian machine as early as this.
Unless anyone can point to clear evidence of one, I’d be inclined to believe that either one of these made its way to Russia, and spawned descendents, or that Russian engineers came up with the same idea, but rather later (german troops captured several screw-drive machines in the second world war).
footinmouth
Did anybody else think that this was abandoned because of the danger of falling onto the spinning screws? That would tear you apart!
FranklinBluth
There was an episode of Junkyard Wars once where one team built one of these, but it didn’t work because the rigged the screws to rotate the wrong way.
kevin
only problem is you cant go on uncuttable surfaces like pavement, but i guess if you have 4′ of snow, that will never be a problem.
make the screws water tight and it was be a boat too
seefish3
For game geeks, a similar system was used for a giant tank in “Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater” by a Russian bad guy. I thought the design was cool then, but neverbelieved it would actually work !
Comment RSS
RSS
Gauldar
zav
Woot_Dog
ziggystardust
J
