Welcome to Post-Apocalyptic Media’s Car-maggeddon Tournament, where we’ve pitted popular vehicles from various wastelands against one another in a battle to the death!
There are 20 vehicles of different shapes and sizes. Who will win and be crowned the Wasteland Winner?
Note: These vehicles are from movies only and one vehicle per movie. (And no space ships or aircraft)
How will Car-maggeddon work? Each Saturday, we will pitch two vehicles against one another based on six criteria (listed below)!
Reliability/Functionality
Does the car have a tendency to break down? To lose parts? Can you sleep in it?
Offense
Does the vehicle have any weapons or other ways to take out the competition?
Defense
What armor (if any) does it have? How hard would it be for a zombie to get inside it or for someone to take out the driver from outside?
Speed
Can it outrun any threats, or does it just trundle along?
Power
Can it ram its way out of anything holding it back?
Aesthetics
This is basically a tie-breaker. In the battle, which vehicle has a higher “coolness factor” or matches best the wasteland look?
Check out the roaster below to see upcoming battles! Once every battle is complete in Round 1, the winners will move on to round 2.
Round 1, Battle 5:
The Landmaster from Damnation Alley (1977) vs. the Panel Wagon from Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)!
Two nuclear fallout movies with two vastly different cars!
If you haven’t watched Damnation Alley yet, you need to. After nuclear war tilted the Earth off its axis, the world is ravaged by giant bugs, radiation fields, and various other post-apocalyptic fun. The Landmasters are giant, gas-guzzling, twelve-wheeled, armored personnel carriers capable of climbing 60-degree inclines and operating in water. They’re … awesome.
Hell Comes to Frogtown is equally entertaining, but for different reasons. In this world, Wrestler Roddy Piper plays Sam Hell, one of the only fertile men left. He travels to Frogtown (run by huge, mutant, talking frogs, obviously) to rescue a harem of women willing to create some babies. It’s asinine and amazing and hilarious. The Panel Wagon is a Chevrolet from 1947-1950 and was General Motors’ first major redesign post-World War II.
The Vehicles!
This won’t be so much of a battle as a slaughter, but let’s see how long the Panel Wagon can survive!
The Landmaster is a far more practical vehicle. It’s huge and can fit multiple people, plus it’s resistant to radiation and most attacks. It’s also easy to fix, as it was designed to use parts from transport trucks, making replacement peices simple to find in the desolate wasteland.
The Panel Wagon is a hearty little thing, but barely two people could fit in its cab to sleep, and it’s from 1950, so it lacks most features of modern cars. It does take far less gas than the Landmaster, which gives it more endurance to escape.
The Landmaster clearly wins in both offensive and defensive capabilities. The Panel Wagon has no built-in features of attack whatsoever, relying solely on the skill of its driver and whatever mercenary can be wrangled to open fire from the top of the car. The Panel Wagon has no defenses (aside from its blinding paint job). The Landmaster is equipped with rockets and guns, steel plating, and can submerge in water.
One thing the Panel Wagon could do is escape. It’s not the fastest car in the world (though it does escape a raider-outfitted Plymouth Belvedere), but it could zip away from the lumbering Landmaster if it caught wind of its approach. It would be quite a sight to see: a giant, trundling, amphibious tank chasing a (relatively) tiny car across the wasteland.
In terms of power, the Panel Wagon is nothing special. It’s made of metal, rather than plastic, so it could burst its way through a few things, but a brick wall or the Landmaster’s thick frame would stop it. The Landmaster though can plow through a lot. It’s a tank that can handle a sixty-degree incline after all.
Where the Panel Wagon fares the worst is in the looks department. The Landmaster is peak post-apocalyptic badassery, where the Panel Wagon looks like a reject from a 1950s sitcom.
As such, the Landmaster squashes the Panel Wagon like an insignificant, well, frog.
WINNER, Round 1, Battle 5: The Landmaster from Damnation Alley!
Next Saturday, we’ll see who can survive longest: the Cannibal’s Truck from The Road or the Scoop trucks from Soylent Green! Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook group, or on Twitter who you think will win! Throw in the hashtag #car-maggeddon !
Check out the other battles here:
Battle 1: Mad Max’s Pursuit Special vs. the Mustang from Cherry 2000
Battle 2: The Bus from Dawn of the Dead vs. the Tank from Tank Girl
Battle 3: Snowpeircer vs. Judge Dredd’s Law Master
Battle 4: The Mercury Marquis from Stake Land vs. Tallahassee’s Escalade from Zombieland
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