Fighting Zombies? Chevrolet Reveals New "Black Ops" Concept Truck

cartechboy writes "Whether its the Mayan calendar, a rough economy, or a fear of zombies, there are people who are currently preparing for the end of the world, coming, like, soon. And they can attract some fringe elements. So maybe those elements are worth a little truck marketing. Yesterday at the Texas State Fair, Chevrolet unveiled a "Black Ops" concept truck that it says will "explore the extremes of preparedness." The truck comes with a vault storage unit, solar power pack, gas masks, gloves, a military first aid kit, a folding shovel, a generator and some rope. Twinkies apparently not included."

Good grief.

[Frosty Piss]

This is just a basic Silverado 1500 Crew Cab with a stupid paint job and a bunch of crap thrown in that and "prepper" already has. For Chevy's sake I hope this stays a "concept car" because the "concept" sucks and if this is a serious direction, Chevy is in serious trouble.

This is posted at Slashdot why? Oh. Zombies.

Real horsepower

[Nidi62]

A better way to be prepared would be to own and be able to ride a horse. Only fuel it needs is grass, hay, and water(and if there isn't enough water for both you and a horse where you are, you are probably screwed anyway), and when it eventually breaks down at least you can eat it. Best option would be 2 horses that you can switch out to avoid tiring them out. Can go places vehicles can't (you can ride along comfortably on the median or shoulder of a road, right past all those people trapped in a traffic jam or out of gas), and, in the case of zombies, a canter or even a slow trot will easily get you past any somewhat mobile rotting corpses. Plus the skittish nature of horses would serve as a warning system to any dangers while traveling through the woods or camped out at night. It would be cheaper than this truck, more useful, and would certainly last a lot longer.

Re:Does anyone understand the "zombies" craze?

[swillden]

As somebody who isn't a hipster, and who isn't part of Generation Y, maybe I just won't ever understand it. But the whole concept of "zombies" and any fascination with it comes off as really idiotic, petty and rather stupid.

I don't think this has anything to do with hipsters, or Gen Y.

From what I can see, the zombie apocalypse is partly a joke and mostly a convenient abstraction which stands in place of any of dozens of different disaster scenarios. The zombie apocalypse is nice in that it captures a sort of maximally extreme yet potentially-survivable scenario. There are plenty of possible disasters for which preparedness is just pointless (because you'd be dead anyway), but once you exclude those from consideration, the needs of survival in the remaining, more or less realistic, disaster scenarios are pretty neatly covered by the clearly-fictional notion of societal collapse brought on by the sudden conversion of much of humanity into mindless undead predators.

In a nutshell: If you're well-prepared for the zombie apocalypse, odds are good that you're also well-prepared for any real disaster, so it's a nice target.

Re:Why do people want to survive the end of the wo

[ShanghaiBill]

Why do people want to survive the end of the world? So after the dust settles they can starve to death eating their own loneliness?

Because we don't expect to be lonely. We expect our friends and families to survive along with us. I live in California, so I am more concerned with a major earthquake than zombies. I am also concerned about a major contagious disease outbreak, or a weather anomaly that causes major crop failures (this happened in 535-536 [wikipedia.org], 1315-1317 [wikipedia.org], and in 1815 [wikipedia.org]). So I have about a year's worth of food for my family, basic tools and survival equipment, and (since I am an American) an assault rifle. Even if a crisis never comes, I am still saving money by buying food in bulk, and growing most of my own vegetables. I also have a some chickens for eggs. You may think that being prepared is kooky, but if you look back through history, there is at least a 30% chance of a major calamity occurring during your lifetime. By the time you see it coming, the store shelves will be bare, and it will be too late. So I think it is foolish to not be prepared. Some of my neighbors also have a stash of supplies, and we are prepared to work together to fight off the zombies.

Re:Snicker Snort.

[AK Marc]

Gasoline spoils rapidly

I stored a car for 5 years. "store" meant putting it on jacks to relieve the pressure on the tires, and disconnecting the battery from the car and putting on a trickle charger once a month for a few days.

Hooked up the battery after 5 years, and it turned over first try. Smelled like crap when the dust and (presuambly) bugs that had ended up in the exhaust burned off, but ran without an issue on 5-year old "regular" gasoline. No stabilizer was added.

And when I lived in Alaska, I had a summer car. It was in storage, un-run for 6-months of the year. One of my storage activities would be to fill the tank before parking it. 6-months storage, full tank, never spoiled the fuel.

Given that I've been in a place to see it happen many times, and it never did, don't believe in it anymore. It was made up by the people who make fuel stabilizers, or started back when the fuel was of very poor quality.

Add that to your irrational attack on automatic, and you look like an uninformed vehicle snob.

Re:Does anyone understand the "zombies" craze?

[cold fjord]

If you're prepped for zombies your friends consider you a fool.

If you're not prepped for zombies your "friends" consider you food.