Big Badass Rig



A Big Brother Bully Trope to Cool Car, this is the kind where even four wheels aren't enough - you need the diesel fumes and huge smoking pipes and... well, you have the big rig truck that tends to be a mainstay in action movies and the like.

Basically, it is a truck with a great capacity for inflicting destruction, whether through weapons attached to it or even supernatural powers.

Note that this isn't simply a list of Big Rigs - that list is firmly in People Sit on Chairs territory. This page is for badass Big Rigs, and the examples should describe why they're badass.

Anime and Manga

 * The Ghost in the Shell franchise has heroes and antagonists alike driving sweet rides of the future, which often clash during conflicts. A garbageman is doing a job to see his daughter again, resulting in a high-speed chase as the protagonists investigate a runaway AI. To his shock, the authorities explain that he was turned into a "ghost" and given false memories to be used as a pawn. Turns out he never had a daughter.

Comic Books

 * Earlier Batman comics featured The Jokermobile, meant as a sendup on the Batmobile. In the Golden Age, Joker would use it to deliver crimes for pay to different syndicates. Soon the Joker was in demand because the Jokermobile delivered. He made the mistake of having a Joker signal that Batman could track down, but Joker used this roadblock as an opportunity to murder the Bat. The only way to stop him was if Batman hijacked the Jokermobile.

Film

 * In Cars 2, Red gets to show off this aspect about himself in the climax. He's normally a quiet firetruck that spends more time listening to his neighbors. When the lemons try to murder Lightning and Mater, however, Red goes Beware the Nice Ones and levels several of the mooks with a few well-aimed high pressure jets. See here
 * The Dreadnought from Death Race(2008). It comes with spikes coming out of its wheels and is filled to the brim with guns. Its sole purpose is eliminating competitors to prevent anybody of surviving the competition enough to earn their freedom.
 * The Joker's semitruck from The Dark Knight. It's so badass, that it leaves behind a slew of destruction and forces the Batmobile into a draw when Batman chases down Joker to stop him from kidnapping Harvey Dent. While Batman has a backup plan, Joker gets him on the ropes.
 * Maximum Overdrive, adapted from the short story "Trucks," runs on this trope. When all of the vehicles and devices decide to rebel against humanity, a few larger rigs corner survivors at a truck stop.
 * Long Haul from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a Blood Knight construction truck Transformer whose weapons launch projectiles.
 * While Dr. Doom's plan in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is convoluted, his truck game is on-pair. His giant Dip Machine is a truck that he plans to drive through Toontown once he gains ownership of the area, to level every Toon in the area. It's certainly big enough to do so, while storing ten thousand gallons of Dip. While he never gets to use it, thanks to Eddie's quick-thinking and adrenaline, we see that it's aim is near accurate. Dr. Doom tests the jets on a captive Roger Rabbit and Jessica, who have to contort themselves to avoid getting killed.
 * There is a hilarious double-subversion in Zombieland Double-Tap. While "touring" Graceland, Tallahassee is angry when Albuquerque and Flagstaff's monster truck crushes the ride that he had. It's big enough to do more than double-tap a horde of zombies. He claims it after they die, but gives up on the idea with how the gears shift. It does come back in the climax, however, and mows down a horde with ease.

Literature

 * "Trucks": What happens if you live in a story written by Stephen King and all the electronics rise up to rebel? You get the giant rigs mowing down people, and blackmailing the survivors into refueling and repairing them. At a truck stop, a line of rigs park at the filling stations, honk, and wait. The story ends with the narrator pondering despairingly if humanity has any hope.

Live-Action TV

 * Power Rangers: Done with the latter-year Disney-owned seasons.
 * Rig-styled mecha would show up about half the time in vehicle-teamed seasons, even in the Super Sentai precursors:
 * Kousoku Sentai Turboranger had a tractor cab for their Black Ranger
 * Hikari Sentai Maskman and Choushinsei Flashman had tractor trailer rigs forming standalone mecha on their own.
 * Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger and Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger had green and yellow tractor trailers respectively
 * And some seasons, like Kagaku Sentai Dynaman, Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman and Go Go Sentai Boukenger, would have their vehicles combine into a tractor trailer form while retaining their megazord configuration
 * A late '80s action series called The Highwayman involved frontier lawmen traveling the roads in big black rigs. The lead character's cab even turned into a helicopter.
 * Knight Rider:
 * The original had one for a mobile base-cum-garage.
 * The Goliath was a truck driven by Garthen Knight coated with a substance that made in practice Nigh Invunerable. It was able to endure tank cannon rounds, unlike the protagonist KITT.
 * The Supernatural episode "Route 666" has a possessed truck.
 * Parodied in a vehicle challenge in season two of Lego Masters. The first part of the challenge was to try and recreate a model LEGO car from eyesight and memory alone. In the second part, you'd design a miniature rig that could survive a demolition derby. It does look pretty cool despite being on the miniature car scale. Twins Caleb and Jacob won the first challenge, which was to start the derby later than anyone else. They then were the first to be eliminated; in their attempt to avoid the other trucks, they rolled off the table. Both are quite stunned at the Epic Fail, and host Will Arnett teases them about it next week.

Tabletop Games

 * Car Wars from Steve Jackson Games has a supplement called Truck Stop which expands the original rule set to include armed and armored 18-wheelers in the autoduelling action.

Video Games

 * The premise behind the game Big Rigs Over the Road Racing. All trucks are capable of Faster-Than-Light Travel and Intangible Man -- although, to be honest, this was the result of Idiot Programming, and not an intended feature.
 * The Vehicular Combat trucks from Gear Grinder.
 * Convoy from Vigilante 8 drives a large yellow Mack truck. The sequel gives him the ability to attach a trailer to the back of it.
 * Darkside in its many iterations from Twisted Metal, whose weapons are more powerful than other non-boss vehicles, at cost of acceleration.
 * The reboot gave us Juggernaut, the Dreadnaught Expy. Its special weapon are mines and teammates can use machines gun mounted on top of it and missile launchers on the trailer. As a boss in Needles Kane's story, it gains even more health, can deploy new enemies after ninety seconds, and don't appears in the radar, though there is still indicative arrows pointing to it. In Mr. Grimm's story, two are fought at the very start. Finally in Dollface's story, a red-painted version Calypso calls Juggernaut 2.0, which has even more health and spawn new enemies after sixty seconds.
 * PlanetSide and the upcoming sequel have the Sunderer APC, more popularly known as the bang bus. The original Sunderer is absolutely huge, being almost two stories tall. A patch later gave it a cattle-catcher to the front. The sequel's version looks more like a giant APC than the original.
 * The G.U.N. Truck from Sonic Adventure 2, a truck large enough which can pull over cars stationed on both sides of the road and can keep up his speed with Sonic in an attempt to arrest, if not outright kill him.
 * The same truck returns in Sonic Generations, now armed with chainsaws and even rocket boosters while trying to ran over the hedgehog.
 * In Kirby and The Forgotten Land, Kirby's new Mouthful Mode ability allows him to partially inhale massive objects, morphing his body to fit around them so he can control them. Not only does he do this with cars, but he does this with a massive 18-Wheeler which he puts to use in the coolest way possible:

Western Animation

 * Optimus Prime. Tractor-trailers would become a mainstay after that, and Optimus would appear as other kinds of vehicles, but there's a very good reason he's most associated with a truck.
 * This commercial for his action figure is almost a Mook Horror Show.
 * The Decepticons had an equivalent in Generation 1 who also turned into a rig, Motor Master, the leader of the Stunticons and the core component of the Decepticon gestalt, Menasor. He was incredibly tough, but in one episode he dared try to face Optimus Prime in a head-on-head collision; it was a Curb Stomp Battle with the villain on the curb.
 * Also, Ultra Magnus, who was slightly bigger than Optimus, as he incorporated the trailer into his robot form. In fact, the original - Japanese - version of his action figure was an Optimus Prime variation.
 * Less known was Octane, a Decepticon Triple-Changer with the heavy-cargo plane and tanker-truck vehicle forms.
 * Discussed in Craig of the Creek when Craig's uncle rents an RV with all the trimmings, including WiFi. His dad questions if they need that much stuff for a camping trip. Apparently Craig's uncle has a habit of overdoing it and choosing the coolest ride possible.
 * In Phineas and Ferb, the boys notice that Candace is struggling with parallel parking while taking lessons from her dad. So they create a monster truck derby where she can relieve stress enough to park calmly, giving her a sweet ride. Candace's truck, especially when their normally mild-mannered father Lawrence orders her to destroy their opponent, is quite cool as it demolishes the track and repels any obstacles in their way. Their opponent's truck also practically towers over them.
 * Milo Murphy's Law has a hilarious example. Melissa's firefighter dad is driving a slow, vintage fire truck to the museum, with Milo and Melissa riding shotgun. Seems sedate enough...until they realize too late that her dad chose a route downhill. Cue the fire truck careening out of control, and Milo trying every button and knob to try and find the backup brakes. The truck has a canary, marionettes, and Diogee (Milo doesn't even have time to say "Diogee, go home!"). Milo finally gets the truck to slow down by breaking the secondary brake, only for it to resume. They crash into a truck-themed diner, and actually drag it with them to the museum. It is quite impressive.
 * In The Simpsons, a Treehouse of Horror parody featured not-Transformers alien race infiltrating Earth. Bart buys one when it changes into a Malibu Stacy convertible, so he can give it to Lisa. They quickly change into trucks and start fighting with each other. Marge's attempts to stop them backfire; they agree to conquer the human race and turn them into foosball figurines.

Real Life

 * Monster truck derbies run on this trope, sometimes literally. You have a racecourse covered in dirt and mud, as a bunch of trucks that seek to flip or crush the others, until one remains standing.