While his first love is rally, Ken Block clearly enjoys mountain climbing. Just not in the traditional sense.
The Hoonigan founder has released his latest online video creation, dubbed Climbkhana 2 it’s nearly nine-minutes of him drifting his way up China’s breath-taking Heaven’s Gate road. It’s a sequel to his 2017 video, Climbkhana, which saw him tackle the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb course in his 1965 Ford Mustang ‘Hoonicorn’ as a break from his popular Gymkhana series.
While he has called time on his Gymkhana videos following the 10th installment that dropped in December 2018, you can’t stop the man from enjoying his amazing custom cars in stunning locations.
To tackle Tianmen Mountain Block used his latest creation, the ‘Hoonitruck’, a 1977 Ford F-150 powered by the same 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 found in Ford’s Le Mans winning GT supercar. With 681kW of power on tap, Block has no trouble turning his Toyo tyres to smoke as he tackles the 99 corners on the way up the mountain.
Heaven’s Gate road has become a popular spot for car companies lately. In September Volkswagen sent its ID.R electric prototype to set a record for the fastest time climbing the mountain. Le Mans winner Romain Dumas drove the EV up in just 7m38secs, but kept it clean and tidy to claim the record; there were no Block-style donuts for the Frenchman.
It seems fans can’t get enough of Block’s antics either. The video had notched up more than 1.2 million views on YouTube in less than a day online. By contrast, Dumas’ flat-out run up the same road has only attracted less than 150,000 views since October 14.
You can see the video in all of its smokey glory below.
Perhaps Block should try Mt Panorama for Climbkhana 3?
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