Jean-Claude Van Damme does leg split between moving Volvo trucks

If there\'s one stunt action star Jean-Claude Van Damme is known for, it\'s his cringe-inducing (for males, at least) leg splits. As a world-first, Volvo Trucks recruited Van Damme to execute the stunt in between two of its moving FM trucks.

\"It\'s going to be quite unusual, and the first time we\'ll ever see anything like it--either in a movie or in a commercial,\" said Van Damme before the stunt sequence was filmed. \"Before doing the split between the trucks, I saw the storyboard and thought it looked amazing. It\'s very majestic and very powerful.\"

The stunt was conceived to demonstrate Volvo Trucks\' dynamic steering system. At low speeds, dynamic steering supposedly makes maneuvering the vehicle practically effortless, thanks to the electric motor that \"automatically regulates the steering and compensates for irregularities that feed through to the steering wheel, such as side winds or bumps in the road surface.\"

Volvo Trucks claims that the dynamic steering system enables the two FM truck drivers to maintain the exact same distance and speed while traveling in reverse as Van Damme executes his leg split.

\"The film is the perfect demonstration of the directional stability that Volvo\'s dynamic steering can offer,\" said Jan-Inge Svensson of the stunt. Svensson is the engineer behind the development of the system\'s software at Volvo Trucks. \"The stability and the control are so good that you can reverse a truck over a long distance with very high precision, which is exactly what we\'ve had to do in this film. It had to be perfect right down to the last centimeter.\"

Check out Van Damme doing the leg split between the two moving Volvo trucks in the video below. The clip should make beer more appetizing tonight. (Just don\'t drink and drive.)

 

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