The New Way Sidewinder XTR garbage truck, a new kind of one-man wonder touted for its ability to crush just about anything — even an automobile — was the perfect nemesis to test the mettle of a road case product.
And should the case fail, the state-of-the-art truck could be conveniently used to cart off the case’s mangled remains and contents to a landfill.
Case vs. Truck
The Unbeatables ground rules were simple: Joe Calzone, president of Calzone Cases, would provide one of his company’s standard-construction road cases — in this case, one of the company’s custom Anvil Iron Case, built with ½-inch plywood lined with foam to protect the case’s contents — in this case, a ukulele.
In the lead-up to the showdown, the show dramatized the protective capabilities of the company’s cases, dropping them from a crane several stories high onto asphalt, and letting others tumble off a flatbed then get rammed by a snowplow. The contents — in this case, a glass vase, crystal wine glasses and eggs — were unscathed.
60,000 Pounds of Pressure
But could a Calzone case withstand the side-loading Sidewinder’s 60,000 pounds of crushing force? The show’s producers displayed how the truck could slowly ingest and, bite by bite, crush an entire car.
“I was very confident, but still had that little sliver of a doubt way back in the paranoid portion of my mind,” admitted Calzone as the garbage truck’s big yellow claw grabbed the case and flipped it into the top portal of the garbage truck’s crushing unit.
The Sidewinder did its worst, but the case — and ukulele — emerged unscathed.
“It is an honor to compete in this exciting new televised competition,” Calzone concluded. “Calzone/Anvil and New Way are each leaders and innovators in our fields, and this show is not only great entertainment, it reminds us that the words ‘Made In America’ still hold incredible value.”
