As a general sponsor, Red Bull organizes so-called Soapbox “races” every year in metropolises around the world, which entertain and delight fans of imaginative vehicles on all continents.
Red Bull Soapbox Races
For those who have not yet heard of this event called “Red Bull Soapbox“, it is a race in vehicles without engines that have at least four wheels and brakes, and their only propulsion is gravity. Although everything sounds rather casual, the imaginatively created and bizarre vehicles can reach speeds of over 160 kilometers per hour while racing down the hill. The race is called Soapbox because the vehicles were originally wooden soap (or apple boxes) boxes on wheels.
Anyone can participate in the race – who is imaginative enough, because he has to design and build a car that will be attractive to the eye and fast enough to outshine the rest of the competition.
The rest is part of the magic of the Red Bull Soapbox Race. For us lovers of Saab cars, the appearance of a Saab with a camper van at the Red Bull Soapbox race in Finland in 2019 was interesting. That year, the world’s weird and wacky innovators on four wheels gathered in Brazil, Finland, Lithuania, the USA and Japan to test your engineering and driving skills.
Saab Soapbox Team
In the relatively short history of Red Bull Soapbox racing, no team has decided to drive their creation in reverse, but then again, there’s always a first for everything.
A Finnish team called “solifer_pojat” consisting of Joni Immonen and Matti Luoma made this surprisingly creative vehicle based on a soapbox model of a Saab 900 with an attached Camper. It would not have been a big surprise if this creation had moved forward, but to the surprise of all the spectators at the race in Helsinki – the Saab with Camper was going in reverse (at least apparently).
When friends Joni and Matti from Oulu decided to participate in the Red Bull Mäkiauto GP, which showcases creative model cars, they had many ideas for their next race. One option was a “burning Notre Dame Cathedral” hurtling down the hill, but after realizing that someone would surely regret it, the duo decided against it. Since then, the team from central Finland has turned out to be involved with the same wisdom. The team decided that what they needed to excel was to build a makeshift station wagon and car and roll down the track – but in reverse.
As you can see in the video, the Finnish duo successfully completed the race and amazed the judges who awarded them all “tens”, both for creation and for their skillful driving. Behind this venture was as much as 2 months of previously invested work and effort.
Although the video gives the impression that the driver is in the Saab and is successfully driving the vehicle with the trailers and then goes into reverse – the secret is that the driver is actually in the front – in the trailer and that he is actually driving the entire set of vehicles.
And it all started from this pipe-based foundation. You can follow the whole project on the instagram account of this team solifer_pojat.
