Brenda Shanklin is the driver of the Black Sheep, a 1975 Dodge Big Horn pulling truck that’s pretty awesome by any measure. The Shanklin family pulling operation is neat because it’s headed by father Lou and his daughters are the drivers of their various pieces of equipment. The Dodge uses a massive Caterpillar diesel for power with multiple turbos stacked on each other to make big boost. As we’ll see in this video, there comes a point when even a massive Cat diesel reaches its limits and just comes apart in dramatic fashion.
As any established BangShift reader knows, we have a think around here with Dodge Big Horn trucks. These rigs were produced in small numbers for a short period of time in the 1970s and there are not many of them left. To see one as a competitive puller is just bad ass beyond words. Hell, this one even has one of the crazy rare factory hood ornaments still on it!
Anyway, about 3/4 of the way through this hook, the block splits in half and launches, literally the hood right out of the frame. The engine does what split engines do and kind of just belly flops its way out of the engine bay and over the front of the truck. Brenda gets it all stopped right quick and she is pretty shocked when she walks around the nose of the rig and sees the destruction.
You can visit their FB page for more videos including post-even teardown stuff that’s just neat. There’s lots more stuff saved out of this mess than you would expect, including the crankshaft. Lou Shanklin talks through those videos and they are pretty great and informative.
We’ve seen plenty of trucks split blocks before but never a rare Big Horn! This is wild.
