First of all, allow me to apologize for being 34 years late in addressing this extremely pressing issue, which I have been wondering about since 1991. It has to do with some of the technical details of the blockbuster 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgement Day, of which the movie was absolutely jam-packed. Remember, this was a movie that dealt with all sorts of sci-fi tropes like time travel, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, liquid metal, and, of course, the top speed of a 1982 Chevy S-10 truck. I will address one of these technical concepts, the one I cannot adequately suspend my disbelief enough to accept.
Do you remember the movie? I bet you do. It was huge! It’s still huge. An icon.
Here, watch the trailer if you’d like a little reminder:
Which one of the technical concepts or cenceits in this movie is a step to far for me to accept, even in a sci-fi context? The time travel? Sure, the very idea of time travel is very much an unproven thing, and the very concept that all of time may be perpetually extant, an unending river of events, perpetually flowing, and we just need to be able to move from one point to another is compelling, but far from proven. But that’s not what I have a problem with.
The robotics? Even with a layer of biological skin growing over a metallic endoskeleton, the Terminator is still just plausible enough, given enough engineering development. The AI? Please, we’re getting close to the point of AI development we see in this movie today!
What about the T-1000’s dynamic liquid-metal technology? I don’t think we have anything like that now, but I’ve broken enough thermometers to have seen how cool mercury is at room temperature, so I can accept that.
But you know what I cannot comfortably accept? And what I couldn’t even accept back in the day when I saw this movie at the theater? What happens in this scene:
See what I’m talking about here? There’s that dramatic car chase, where our heroes, consisting of a mother, her son, and a large, Arnold Schwarzenegger-shaped robot commandeer a 1982 Chevy S-10 and attempt to outrun the T-1000 Terminator robot, who is driving a big rig truck.
In the course of the chase, the kid demands of the Terminator to “step on it,” whereupon the robot answers that “this is the vehicle’s top speed.” And what is that top speed?
In the movie, it looks like about 61.5 mph. The speedo needle does briefly bounce to 65, but then pretty rapidly settles back down to right around 60 mph or so. Here’s my question: can this be right? And my other question: were Chevy S-10s really that slow?
I don’t buy it. Of all the bonkers stuff in the movie, like how time travel requires nudity, this is the bonkersest. I mean, Chevy S-10s were slow, I know that, but they weren’t that slow. Let’s just consider the specs of a 1982 Chevy S-10 for a moment here. You could get them with two engines, a 1.9-liter inline-four that made 82 horsepower, or a 2.8-liter V6 making 110 hp.
Neither are big numbers, but not that unusual for cars of the 1980s, and certainly not the lowest numbers out there. Hell, I daily drive a car with about 52 hp and that can hold 70-75 mph pretty easily. A 1982 Chevy S-10 weighed about 2,600 to 2,800 pounds, and even if we assume the smaller engine and higher weight, that still comes to about 34 pounds per horsepower, which is on par with my low-hp car that can still manage over 70 mph.
So what might the top speed of a four-banger S-10 have been? If I had to guess, I’d have to think it could manage at least 80-85 mph. Hell, a 1977 Volkswagen Beetle, which made 48 hp on the same SAE scale used for the S-10, had a top speed of 84 mph. Sure, it weighed less, about 1800 pounds, but that would have given it a 37-ish pounds-to-hp ratio, which is worse than the S-10. So surely the S-10 could have at least matched that?
There are some mitigating factors at play, though, so we should evaluate this vehicle carefully. The S-10 used in the scene was about nine years old at the time of shooting, and seemed to be a work truck, specifically a gardening truck for the Bol-L-Gol Gardening concern, which seems too small an organization to have a fleet of trucks with speed governors on them. So I don’t think the speed was artificially limited.
What could have limited the speed of the S-10, though, is specific to the one in the movie. Specifically, it’s that camper shell, which looks to be home-built out of wood, like a little cabin perched on the bed of the truck:
Sure, it looks charming with its peaked roof and wood paneling, but it had to be pretty heavy and is, aerodynamically, a nightmare. Carrying a little cottage on your back would absolutely slow you down.
The bed-cabin gets smashed to toothpicks and tongue depressors pretty early in the chase, and yet the speed of the truck doesn’t seem to benefit from being freed from that burden much, if at all. This could be because there’s still considerable weight inside the truck cab itself, with two people and a robot.
Let’s say Sarah Connor weighs, what, 130 pounds? And the kid, he’s probably, oh, maybe 100? But the Terminator, the T-800, he has to be pretty substantial, right? That’s got to be at least 500 pounds of killing machine? Let me look that up.
Of course, the internet provides an answer: 400 pounds. So, the cab itself if hauling around about 630 pounds, give or take? That’s a pretty decent amount, though not that terrible, really. I’m sure S-10s routinely carried two 250 pound guys on the highway.
It’s possible this S-10 wasn’t well maintained, or had some transmission slipping issue, or something, but the truth is, on camera, in the scenes we saw, it seemed to drive just fine, and sounded just fine. I can’t believe that this vehicle could only go a bit over 60! The S-10 in that scene, as shown, should at least have managed 70 mph.
And, what gets me is that there was no reason to have it max out its speed so low! I don’t know why director James Cameron made this decision, but what would have had to change about the movie if the truck couldn’t go more than 70 mph instead of 60? Nothing!
Everything could have played out exactly the same, except the S-10’s maximum speed could have been better represented, freeing us in the audience from some unpleasant waves of disbelief and speculation, and saving the poor maligned little truck from decades of exaggerated claims of extreme slowness.
Has this movie been re-released yet, with some new, re-mastered director’s cut? If not, then I think it absolutely should, and the one change that absolutely must be made is that the chase scene speed be adjusted so the S-10 maxes out at 71.5 mph.
That would make the world a much better place, I think.
Kill Some Time By Watching This Old Beetle Documentary With Me And Obi-Wan Kenobi: Cold Start
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This Deleted Scene From Pixar’s ‘Cars’ Raises All Kinds Of Unsettling Questions
My grandpa had one, probably with the 4 banger, and a stick. And a wood shell. It wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t Chevette slow either. Torch is right on this score.
FINALLY, TORCH HAS MY SAME QUESTION FROM MY 10 YEAR OLD MIND.
Shades of the Hyundai Accent in Knives Out that was apparently struggling to accelerate at 70mph or something (it’s been 5 years, but that still sticks with me). I hated my slightly older Accent, it was a shitbox, but it wasn’t *that* slow.
On the other hand, at least one of the work Chevettes I used to drive would only hit 60mph from a standing start, if you tried to get there from 30 or 40, it’d peter out and lose power, although that was 20 years old ar the time.
An iron Duke powered S-10 with that heavy parachute of a bed cover? Yeah, it absolutely could have been that slow.
The crazy thing is, I noticed that low top speed as well.
A friend had an early 80s S-15 with the 2.8L and that thing had no problem going 75mph…downhill…with a tailwind. Given enough time it could hit 75mph by itself on flat ground, but if there was a headwind or even the slightest hill it dropped speed pretty bad. With that said, I loved the thing.