Mini Countryman Performs First-Ever Car Backflip

The evolution of the backflip has been making its way through extreme sports for years. First we had athletes in skis doing backflips off of ramps, then it was bicycles, then motorcycles, then snowmobiles, and now we're starting to see actual cars do backflips. In an effort to take on Red Bull's crazy stunts, Monster Energy took a Mini Countryman SUV and gave it the backflip treatment.

Monster Energy claims it's the world's first car backflip, and we can't really refute that since we've never seen it before until now. The driver behind the wheel is Rally Raid world champion Guerlain Chicherit, who spent four years preparing for the stunt. A teaser was posted earlier last month showing off the Mini vehicle in mid-air, but didn't show the landing — we're guessing that the first couple of test runs didn't go so well.

To skip the intro and go straight to the jump, skip to the 0:34 mark.

Granted, the ramps were built specifically to make a small car do a backflip, but that doesn't make the feat any less impressive. And according to Monster, Chicherit actually performed the stunt twice, both of which were successful jumps — one of which was a test run, and the other was in front of a crowd of spectators.

What do you think the next thing to do a backflip will be? A semi? A tank? Well, it's not likely a semi or a tank could do a backflip, but you never know. We never thought a snowmobile could do a backflip but here we are witnessing it today. It could be only a matter of time before we see even more crazy things done with heavy machinery.

[via Jalopnik]