Nestled near the mountains of western Canada resides this behemoth earth mover.
THERE WOULD WOULD BE NO commuting with this truck, you’d just build the office in the back. The 1974 Terex Titan was the world’s largest truck for 25 years, a huge machine built to haul raw material around open-pit mines.
A single prototype was built just as the coal market dropped in 1973, and with high fuel costs the intended market of open-pit mine operators never materialized, leaving the behemoth a unique example. General Motors of Canada, which owned Terex, built and sold it to Kaiser Steel, which used it in California for a couple years before moving it to Sparwood, B.C., Canada in 1978. The vehicle had to be disassembled and loaded onto a train to take it north. It worked until 1991, when it was retired and gifted to the town of Sparwood as a tourist attraction. Despite not being in service, it remained the largest truck for a few years.
The stats for the Titan were all world records at the time of production. It was the tallest and had the highest carrying capacity of any truck. At 22 ft 7 in (6.88 m) four full grown men would have to stand on each others heads just to peak over the top. Fully loaded it weighs over 1 million pounds. The diesel engine is 10,343-cu.in., has 16-cylinders and puts out 3,300 horsepower. its tires alone are 12 ft. tall. All this and the top speed, when full, was under 30 mph.
Visitors now stop by the roadside attraction, taking pictures in the wheel wells or gawking straight up. For those curious but not in the neighbourhood, there is a web cam just for the truck. Sparwood is also the most easterly town in B.C. and one of the highest elevated in Canada.
