Kapan’s keitora class of compact trucks are an interesting breed of vehicles. They look like you could pick them up and pop them in your pocket, while also offering a decent amount of hauling capacity, which is something all Americans need, right? But if you don’t need to haul around your hopes and dreams and instead just want to go stupid fast, then the kei truck might also be a good bet, provided you have a spare jet engine lying around.
One automotive YouTuber who does have a spare jet lying around is WhistlinDiesel, who has previously strapped fire-breathing engines to everything from roundabouts to monster trucks. Now, the internet personality has strapped his jet to the bed of a tiny truck to see what would happen.
In one of his latest videos, Cody Detwiler called in a few of his accomplices and gave them just one hour to strap a jet engine into the bed of a tiny Honda pickup truck. The upgrade reportedly upped the tiny truck’s power by around 1,000 times and meant it could manage much higher speeds than the 35 mph it could just about hit with the engine under the hood.
Miraculously, the install was a success and when the engine was fired up, it moved the truck along nicely. Then, because this is a WhistlinDiesel video, the chaos kicked in.
The team hit the highway and attempted to throttle up the engine on public roads, which they claimed might not technically be legal. Weirdly, it might actually be fine depending on where and how the jet-powered truck was being driven, as a jet-powered Smart car was previously cleared for road use in the Land Of The Free. America, what a place.
With the engine running smoothly, Detwiler and co set off down a quiet country lane, and shattered the peace in the process. The jet truck flew along, easily cruising up past 70mph, before a drop in power caused an almighty ploom of smoke to shoot from the rear. It’s quite the site to behold, really, and left Detwiler “dumbfounded” after his first pass in the truck.
Because it’s a jet engine, the first run burned through a third of a tank of gas, which meant the team had to top it up before attempting a full-throttle run. Then, when they opened the taps, the truck was mighty.
There’s a jet of flames from the back before the truck launched off the line and its speed climbed rapidly. 80, 90, 100 kmph all flash by (that’s about 50, 56 and 62mph) before the speedo on the tiny truck maxed out at about 75mph.
Speed test complete, it’s obviously time to merge with a busy road, which went about as well as you’d expect. The temperatures in the engine climbed with the speed and smoke, once again, billowed from the rear. This didn’t sit well with other road users, as Detwiler was soon joined by the fire department. Understandably, the fire department advised WhistlinDiesel to refrain from turning on the jet on the highway.
Despite the legal gray area surrounding driving a jet truck on public roads, I’d call this project a resounding success for Detwiler and co. It proved that the kei truck can really shift when it needs to, and showed just how much stuff these tiny trucks are capable of hauling around.
Thankfully, if this build whet your appetite for some more WhistlinDiesel content, we’ve got a whole roundup of some of our favorite projects from the channel right here. Or if you’d rather while away the hours reading about ke trucks, you can find that here too.