Fifth Gear Brings Hot Wheels To Life, Sets Real-Life Loop-The-Loop Record

Fifth Gear replicates the classic Hot Wheels loop-the-loop, performing the world record for the largest 360 degree loop in a real car, a Toyota Aygo. Here's how they did it.

First, Fifth Gear needed to find out how fast he needed to go to hit the 40-foot-tall full-size Hot Wheels loop. The physics equations are pretty simple for finding what the minimum speed the car can have at the top of the loop to perform a successful loop. The answer, in this case, given the car's weight and the size of the loop, was 36 MPH.

A bigger issue, however, was the question of what that gravitational forces would exert on the car given that forward momentum. Given speed and weight, we can expect to see a sizable gravitational force — say, six G's — upon the occupant. So, will Fifth Gear's stunt driver be able to overcome that gravitational force? Well, yeah, duh. But let's watch it anyway.

Send an email to Ray Wert, the author of this post, at ray@jalopnik.com.

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