Why I Drive an Icelandic Ford F350

Today, I am in Iceland. I have flown all the way to Iceland to celebrate my cousin's birthday and to interview an Icelandic truck. So this right here is a 2006 Ford F-350 with an excursion rear end on it. That's why it's got six doors. We're gonna find out all about Iceland trucks, why people build them, what it takes to actually build one of these things, and what the purpose is. Why do they need massive tires? What's the point? Let's find out why the owner drives it. So right here, we are with the owner of this truck. Do you wanna introduce yourself? Yeah, my name is Aron. I'm from Iceland. And this is my F-350 plus a back end of a Ford excursion. So that's why it's a six door. Yeah, so what we have is like the first two doors here. They come off a Ford 350 and everything in the front here is from a F-350. The back end, the last door here, and the boot is from a Ford excursion. Oh, wow. The 350 is a 2006 model. It has the 6.0 diesel engine in it, which is way too loud for everything. It makes it kinda nice to drive it. The excursion is, I don't know, 2004, five. Okay. And what we do is we just put them together. And everything that you're looking at is made in Iceland. All of this work is done here in the country. Everything is done. We put them together. We jack them up. They go on these massive tires. And what we have is like, these are 46 inch Mickey Thompsons. So they stand 40 inch tall here, 46 inch tall. Wow. We have them on these speed lock rims. And then what we have is this, it's an air system that we have here. And we are able to hook up hoses. Oh, right here. Yes. And we air them down on the go. What this has as well is like, you see the nice lights that we put onto it. It has air lockers front and in the back. It has a low gear allowing it to crawl. And the purpose of the truck is basically the big tires is we take it out in the snow. We air it down and the big tires deflate, give us a much, much bigger footprint in the snow. And it allows us to float on top of it and drive basically anywhere we wanna. Wow. Until we get stuck. So what's the reason that got you into these? You know, not everybody in Iceland has one of these. This is still quite rare, right? It is, yeah. But I would say it is the freedom of going anywhere in the winter. I mean, look around, like what we have around us here. In the winter, this gets completely covered in snow. And when it gets covered in snow, and if you're brave enough, you can take it basically anywhere you want to go. Really? And you know, you're out there in the middle of nowhere, sometimes all by yourself, sometimes it's better to bring a buddy. But sometimes you're by yourself and it's just, it's nature, it's you, it's nothing around you. And it's about the peace and the quiet and the, you know, just enjoying, you know. Yeah. Being there in the moment. Yeah, amen. Now, have you ever got stuck? Everyone probably wonders. I actually have, yes. But getting stuck is part of like the fun, you know. We sat out and sometimes just without the goal, you know. We just wanna go and have fun and getting stuck is part of it, you know. But as soon as you get stuck, all your buddies are gonna surround you, take pictures of you, post them online, you know, make fun of you. And you're gonna feel a little low after it, you know. But it's just part of the fun. But it's best to catch your buddies stuck, you know. So the modifications on this, you've got over fenders, right? These are added here in Iceland. Is all this stuff made here? Everything is made. And the reason we need the fenders is it's just a requirement here. Oh. We cannot have the tires, you see how much they stick out? We cannot have the tires sticking out further than the fender. Okay. So if the tires stick too far out, we just get pulled over right away. Oh, by the police. Yeah, by the police. Oh, go ahead. What were you gonna say? I was gonna say about the air system that we have. You see, it's not connected right now. Yeah. And that's just because we've been driving on the main road. And we only put the air system on when we go off-road because the hoses are gonna stick out even further. Oh. And it's a massively wide car. Yeah. And we don't want the hoses on, on the main roads, because it's just gonna be too wide. And so these don't move when you're driving? These, oh, the spins. Yeah, they stay in place. Okay. And like, we just have a valve in here. Yeah. And we open the valve, and it's just gonna. And then we have a compressor in the back. This is gonna pump all the four tires up at the same time. And it just allows us to, not being able to have to jump out, air down, air up. Air down, air up. Yeah. And in the snow, sometimes just one PSI difference in tire pressure is gonna be the difference between being stuck or being able to be. Really? Yeah. Wow. So when you go on the snow and ice, how much do you typically lower it from on the street? So right now we run them at 25 PSI on the road. Okay. But in the snow, nothing is gonna happen unless you're under 10. And we take them to five and even go down to three PSI. And then, you know, you have to drive slower, of course. But at three PSI, there is not much air left in the tire. And you basically, that is what allows us to float. Wow. What's the culture like in Iceland to build these? Do a lot of people do it? Is it very popular or is it too expensive for most to enjoy? I would say this thing started out just as a hobby. People were modifying these bigger trucks in their garage. You would just buy bigger tires and you would do it all yourself. And then just take them out to the winter, go out with your buddies. But I would say in the last couple of years, this is getting more and more expensive. I mean, cars are getting more expensive. Tires, everything is just getting more expensive. So I think, unfortunately, we are seeing less and less of these trucks being made. Wow. So it was kind of five, 10 years ago, maybe the peak of production? Yeah, probably something like that. Or even further back when people were just doing it themselves. Oh, in the garage? Yeah. So it started kind of as like a home build for people. Oh, definitely. Oh, wow. And then with the tourism booming here in Iceland, we started to make like the big six doors because people saw what the locals were doing and they wanted a piece of it. And that is why, you know, this thing is here. So is this mainly a tour vehicle, not for recreation? Oh yeah, this is mainly, we mainly use this one for tours. Okay. That's why it has the six doors and it seats up to 10 people. But if I had the personal one, it would be smaller, you know. There is no need for it to be like 10 seats. Obnoxious. Yeah, obnoxiously big, yeah. And I see you've got the light bars on the front, on the roof. Is this for going off road at night? Yes, these are actually OZ lights. They are really nice. I like how the, you know, the look of them. Yeah. And if you stay here for a second, I'll show you one thing. Oh, you're about to blind me. No, no, no, I'm not going to turn them on. Okay. I was going to say, if he did. Oh, that's cool. So they have a cool light effect on them, you know. That's awesome. But once you turn them on, I would probably blind you. Yeah, I imagine. And you've got the custom plate, log one. Yeah. Is that expensive in Iceland to get custom plates? No, it's like 500 bucks when you buy it and you can have up to six letters on it. These have different axles underneath or any suspension change? They sure do. But this is mostly standard Ford axles that we are running here. In the back, we have, this is actually on air suspension. So in the back, we have air suspension here. See it here? I see. So, and this is pretty much just automatic. Depending on how many people are in the car, it's automatically going to raise and lower itself depending on that. You know, you can see how it's fairly high at the moment. Yeah. And we can air it down and it can air itself down. So what's the stuff in the boxes up there? Don't ask about the boxes. It's a top secret. Now we have ropes in the boxes and just recovery gear. Okay. And yeah, that's basically everything that's on. So basically in case you get stuck to help you get out, right? Yes. But you're gonna, like if you get this stuck, you're gonna need, you need a lot of time and you basically need a buddy as well to pull you out, you know? Yeah. So we have kinetic ropes that we use a lot. And I think there is a shovel in there as well. Okay. But I have never had to shovel this thing out. So you've never got this truck stuck? Not this one in particular, but I've got another one exactly like this stuck and that was a five hour rescue. Five hours? In the middle of Iceland, yeah. And I felt a little bit bad after that for the next couple of days. Yeah. But I'm fine now. Because I guess it's kind of like the goal is to go out there and push the limit to almost getting stuck, but not. Yes, that is the whole point of it, you know? And the more you push it, you know, the more fun it is. We usually don't go to areas that we aren't familiar with. We want to be familiar with the area because you want to know it. You want to know what is under it. But when it snows here, you know, we get layers on top of layers on top of layers. No, so we have meters of snow and that's what we are basically driving on top of. Okay. But underneath that, there can be cracks and crevasses, especially if you go on the glaciers. So you have to be careful. But if, let's say you're very unlucky, you can fall through it, you know, and then the truck is going to be stuck and that's going to be an operation to get it out. Yeah. And like, especially last winter, we had a lot of snow and then it all melted and then it snowed more. And then you were left with these massive, massive slush. Splash and water underneath it. And then areas that used to have no water at all, we had just like, were just frozen solid from above, you know, you had this thick layer frozen on top of it. And that was a bit of a dangerous area to go in because you're driving through area you think you know, and then you're just driving on top of ice and you can fall through that. That's scary. These are all issues that people that are used to doing this, you know, they know and they have to be, you know, mindful of. So do you have to have a special license to operate one of these or can anyone just get one? For this one, you need a special license just because it seats up to 10 people. And because we use this for tours, you have to have like a commercial license for this. But the smaller ones that you see, which are just regular jacked up like Land Cruisers, Toyota Hiluxes, they're popular here. You don't need a special license for that. I've seen some Suzuki Jimneys driving around. People doing that now? The Jimneys are, you know, this thing is going to be weighing around, I think this is a four and a half ton truck. Four and a half ton. Yeah. And the Jimney is just so much, much lighter. And compared to like the 46 inch tires on this, because this is what we need to get it to go through the snow. If it was any smaller or narrower, it wouldn't just go anywhere because we use it to float on top of the snow. Some people online are saying, why don't you run narrower tires? And there is no point because we're never going to be touching the ground beneath it. We want to float, you know. But with the Jimneys, they're so light that they only need about 35 inch tires. Okay. And they float because they are so light. And sometimes you could see a Jimney drive circles around this one when we are struggling. Really? But it all just depends on the snow, you know. We have so many different types of snow. Sometimes it's super easy to drive on it. Sometimes it's just, you know, really difficult. Sometimes we have the powder snow and that can be really fun to drive through the powder, you know, it goes everywhere. So it all just depends on the snow. So you change the tire pressure based on if it's powder or like hard, wet snow. Yeah. Okay. So what would kind of the difference between powder and like wet, thick snow? In the wetter snow, you need it to be a lot lower and then you go slower. In the powder, usually you have a solid layer underneath the powder and then you have a fresh layer or this much powder on top. And then you can basically just drive fast on it. Okay. With higher pressure. With higher pressure, yeah. Because the faster the tire is going and with the lower pressure, it's going to be heating up, you know. Yeah. So we cannot, we can absolutely not drive it with five PSE on the main road, you know. Yeah. The tire is just going to be ruined right away. Now, before we go for a ride, I want to ask another question of how much do these costs to build and buy in Iceland? It's never going to be under 30 million Icelandic. $300,000 Canadian. Yeah. And sometimes you can even just take the car and the modification, if you do it all the way, you have the extra fuel tank, like this one has an extra fuel tank. Oh, wow. Which is going to allow it just to drive in the mountains for days, basically. If you do it all the way with the lockers, with the low gear, with the suspension, with everything, it can be the price of the car, just the modification. And do you have crazy taxes here for importing? So if you have, if you want to import a car with a big gas engine, it's going to be in the 60%. 60% tax. Yeah. That's why you don't see any sport cars, basically. There's no supercars. No. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was, because I was trying to find a few for the, when I came here for this trip as well, I couldn't find anything. You're lucky if you see one. Are there any Ferraris here? I think two. Two in the whole country? Yeah, whole country. Wow. Well, that's okay. I got this. This is what I wanted. This is what I came here for. This is what makes Icelandic car culture, or yes, truck culture, unique, right? I would say so. I hope they bring these to Canada one day. Now, do you mind if we go for a ride in it? Let's go. And my cousins, who I'm actually here celebrating my birthday with, or their birthday, my cousin Jordan, they're going to come for a ride in it, and I guess might get some crazy reactions. He's not paying me to say this, and I have not done a brand deal or anything, but if you want to support these guys, I'll put the link in the description. You can go and book a tour in this exact truck. They have a white one as well, and he's building another truck coming up soon. So if you want, you can go book. Link is in the description. What is the website again? I-S-U? U-S-I. Dot I-S. There you go. I'll put the link in the description. Thanks, guys. Good old diesel, baby. So we are in the vehicle now. We've got the whole family back here, my cousins. It's Jordan's birthday. Hey! There we go. Shout out to Jordan. That's the reason I'm in Iceland, and to meet up with Aaron to see this crazy truck. So off we go. Oh, wow. It's pretty quick still for being so heavy. Wow. So is this your navigation system built into the truck? No, this is a GPS system that we use for off-roading. Okay. And we have, because we have the bigger tires as well, and we have 44-inch tires that go on this, and 46 inches, and they aren't calibrated for the speedometer always. So here we just have the actual speed of the car that we are. Ah, yeah, yeah. So it shows, because sometimes the speedometer can be up 10. Yeah. And we must be over the line on this road, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We take the middle of the road. Yeah. There's no way this fits in this tiny little village lane, countryside lane. Oh, man. Look at the scenery too. The rule in Iceland is that you have to stick to trails or tracks. We just cannot pick a path and just go anywhere. But in the winter, the rule is if everything is covered in snow, and we are staying on top of the snow, we are pretty much just allowed to drive on top of that snow anywhere we want to go. Oh, wow. And we're actually, you know, with the lower air pressure and with all the snow, you're not damaging anything underneath. Wow. So as long as you do that and you're careful, you can pretty much drive where you want to go. That's pretty cool. And what are these controls down here for? So this is for the inflation system. Every valve there is for a tire, so this is the right front, right, left, and then the rear tires. One of the valves is going to release air, and if I turn it off, you're going to hear air starting to come out. And here we have indicators showing us how much PSI is the tires. So right now it is dropping from 16, 17, and we can take it down to 10 for these gravel roads. It's going to give us a smoother ride. It's going to be better for the car, you know. There's less stress on everything here. But if there was snow around, we would take it well below 10. How much do these tires cost and where can you buy them? These are actually Mickey Thompsons, so you can just buy them online. But they are 46-inch tall, 19.5-inch wide, so they are actually massive tires. You can buy Nokians, which we use as well, 44-inch Nokians. Rims and tires, we're looking at at least 20K. And is this kind of, if you're into vehicles and cars, I guess, is this what you would do in Iceland instead of having a Mustang or a Corvette or a Porsche? Yeah, I think so. Just because the summer season is short here, I mean, you can still find the Mustangs, a few Porsches around, but it's just the season for it is short. If you live in the city, you have the one city, and then, you know, you're stuck on the island with your Porsche. And that's it? That's it. Yeah, I guess maybe the Dakar would sell well out here. Oh yeah, I think it would. Oh, the cornering's pretty good. Oh! That's crazy. It like defies your mental physics because you think the vehicles just get a tip. It's so long, it's so stable because it's so long. Yeah. You have all the time in the world to get it going. Wow. Oh! That's pretty awesome. I need one of these in Canada. Maybe I should turn my G-Wagon into one of these. Yeah, you should. It's like a playground. Thank you so much for taking us for a ride in this. Of course. I appreciate you doing a video. And yeah, if you want to book a tour, what's the website? usi.is. There you go. If you want to go for a tour with Aaron, maybe in this truck even, go to the link in the description. And he's not paying me to say this. I'm just promoting him because I'm grateful that you did a video with me. So thank you guys. Thank you for watching. Remember, never ever quit on dreams. I'll see you in the next video. God loves you.