The word epic doesn’t even begin to describe the trick pulled off by actor Jean-Claude Van Damme in an ad for Volvo trucks that has gone viral. In it, Van Damme is seen performing a split between two trucks, with his feet only sitting on top of their mirrors.
It starts with a simple close-up of the action star, 53, with his eyes closed. “I've had my ups and downs. My fair share of bumpy roads and heavy winds. That's what made me what I am today,” he says in the narration, notes USA Today. “Now I stand here before you. What you see is a body crafted to perfection.”
As the camera pulls back, we see what JCVD is really standing on - two trucks going backwards on an empty highway. The Volvo trucks even pull slightly away from each other, allowing JCVD’s legs to split even wider. Ih shows off his “pair of legs engineered to defy the laws of physics, and a mindset to master the most epic of splits,” as the Expendables actor says in the narration.
The video was only posted by the car company on Wednesday. Since then, it has racked up over 7.3 million views and 64,000 up votes.
So why did Volvo pick this stunt for its advertising? “The film is the perfect demonstration of the directional stability Volvo Dynamic Steering can offer,” Volvo Trucks engineer Jan-Inge Svensson said in a statement. “The stability and 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 centimetre.”
image: screenshot