Drunk Australian Car-Torching Prank Goes Awry, Still Deemed 'Hilarious'

By  Andrew P. Collins

The night started innocently enough; bunch of dudes getting wasted up in Australia's Northern Territory. Someone says "let's cut the roof off Darren's Land Cruiser!" Someone else produces an oxyacetylene torch. Next thing you know there's a flaming chariot of doom is bounding down the street. Oops!

NT News, which has a picture of the Land Cruiser Troop Carrier in question, says five friends set to slicing the roof off the rig belonging to just-turned-36-year-old Darren Hopkins at around 2AM on a late September Sunday. Apparently the truck was a derelict. But I mean, still. This is some next-level savagery.

When the hilarity of the late-night DIY convertible-cutting wore off the bros allegedly knocked off and moved on to the next activity. The truck, at this point superheated and unattended, is said to have kept burning, "started itself," and began bumping along the road as a result of some kind of wire splicing.

That sounds pretty suspect to me. But that's these dudes' story and they're sticking to it. Though there was still a lot of argument left on the table regarding exactly how far the half-sliced hellwagon propelled itself.

"The distance it travelled was debated among the partygoers who were still celebrating the following afternoon. The Land Cruiser may have travelled between 6m and 20m along Wellington Parade before giving up," reports NT News, which also included this gem of a quote from Hopkins in its piece: "I thought it was hilarious — it's my big-ass birthday candle — I just couldn't blow it out, I had to call the fire brigade."

The local authorities said these rabble-rousers won't be charged with anything because Australia. Actually the quote from local Duty Superintendent Louise Jorgensen is; "Unfortunately there is no criminal charge for setting destroying your own property or for stupidity."

I would have thought letting a burning car loose on a public road would most definitely be a chargeable offense on somebody's book but I guess they're committed to keeping it low-key in the NT.

At any rate this Hopkins fella sounds like a man that knows how to have a good time. Maybe too good of a time. If you get invited to this guy's house make sure you bring your beer helmet and uh, maybe park around the block. In the next town over.

Hat tip to Philippe! Images via Vladimir Pustovit/Flickr and cmonville/Flickr

Contact the author at andrew@jalopnik.com.

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