If you find yourself behind the wheel of a Ford Ranger Raptor, driving towards a gap just 2.8m wide, and wondering whether you could get through it on just two wheels, we now know that the answer is a resounding yes.
Legendary stunt driver Paul Swift has bagged all sorts of world records, including the tightest parallel park in an electric vehicle and most doughnuts around a motorcycle, performing a wheelie, in one minute. He’s also performed five different stunts in two cars
in just 57.21 seconds.
The 44-year-old has added to that tally, setting another particular Guinness World Record for the tightest gap driven through by a pickup truck on two wheels. The record now stands at 88cm, although it’s not quite as simple as that — the poles were 280cm apart, which is the height of the Raptor (192cm) plus 88cm, but it’s the latter measure that sets the record.
The record was set on a particularly windy day at Silverstone, which made the record attempt a little trickier. The team also found that the ramp to get the Raptor onto two wheels needed strengthening to support the pickup’s weight.
Swift was fully aware of the Ford’s capabilities, though, having performed stunts in the Raptor previously, including for the ‘Cleared to Land’ video that announced the pickup’s arrival in Europe.
“I’ve been driving on two wheels since the age of seven,” said Paul Swift, the new record holder. “I started on the garden lawn mower, so to get a world record that recognises that is fantastic.”
“It was looking very close that he wasn’t going to get the record, but at the last minute, he pulled through, and he broke it by just one centimetre, so the tightest of gaps there,” explained a Guinness World Records spokesperson. “He did what he had to do.”
