Yahoo Autos What an Actual Storm Chaser Thinks of 'Twisters' and Its Vehicles
With the revival of the Twister franchise, it’s time for America to get hyped about storm chasing again — and Ram Trucks has reprised its role as the vehicle to take you into the tornado. The new movie, Twisters, captures the pandemonium just as more and more people want to join in on the excitement of storm chasing. In the film, two diametrically opposed chase teams take to the Oklahoma storm season with different goals.
And, of course, much like the 1996 movie that started the series and its Chrysler connections, both teams are outfitted in prominently visible Stellantis vehicles. (The original film's caravan included a brand-new 1995 Dodge Ram and a 1984 Jeep J-10 Pickup, as well as a 1985 GMC Vandura Bus.) The only time a main character in Twisters is seen inside of anything but a Dodge, Ram or Chrysler... well, it’s safe to say the vehicle doesn’t survive.
This is not a happy accident. Ram Trucks and its parent company, Stellantis, recently launched a co-branded marketing push with Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Amblin Entertainment — the studios behind the new movie — to promote the new movie and, of course, its star trucks. As part of that partnership, Twisters lead Glen Powell has also taken on the role of Ram product ambassador, making appearances in new ad spots for the trucks.
Of course, contrary to what Stellantis would like you to believe, not every good storm chaser drives a Ram. To find out a bit more about the truth behind the film, Road & Track talked with a real-life storm chaser to untangle the facts from the movie magic with regard to both chase vehicles and the storm-pursuit lifestyle.
Tommie Carter Jr. is the owner of Texas Vortex, a Texas-based storm-chasing company that uses their collected data to enhance the understanding of preparedness for Mother Nature’s most captivating yet formidable displays, per their website. Carter owns and operates three chase vehicles — two for tornadoes and one for hurricanes. Powell, Carter, and the film's original star, Bill Paxton, all share Texas roots; between tornadoes in north Texas and hurricanes on the coast, it's safe to say many Texans are born and raised with a deep appreciation of what weather can take from a community.
Carter started chasing in the middle of Discovery's Storm Chasers run, when the hype for Tornado Alley storms was as big as it was after the release of the original Twister.
“It was like Twister all over again; the TV show was out on Discovery, Storm Chasers, and I said, 'let’s go.' We went up to the border of Texas and Oklahoma, and that day was the day I saw my first armored tornado truck: it was the TIV2 of Sean Casey. I didn’t even think it was real; I thought it was some type of prop from the movies or TV.” (The two examples of the TIV, or "Tornado Intercept Vehicle," were both created by Oklahoma storm chasers; the latter has traded hands a few times.)
In an ironic twist, Carter stumbled into storm chasing via a friend’s divorce, not unlike how why Bill Paxton’s Bill Harding was sucked back into the chase in the original movie as he tried and failed to get his estranged wife, Helen Hunt’s Dr. Jo Harding, to sign divorce papers, causing him to wind up back in the mix with his former eclectic crew of tornado hunters.
While these movies are big-budget, high-action Hollywood affairs, it’s important to note that real-life storm chasers like Carter say they do represent the danger and excitement that goes into each of their chases — the movies just make it look a lot prettier.
"I have people tell me that it’s 70 percent accurate; I would give it more 90 percent correct. The flying cow doesn’t happen, but the rest of the stuff, where they go and chase after it and put the little balls inside of there and Dorothy and all that, we do that now," Carter said. "We’ve just gotten more advanced. We've gotten more advanced with rockets and radars but we still use the bobbles they throw up in there to check the pneumatic air.”
In the new Twisters movie, Powell's character, Tyler Owens, drives a Ram that has been modified into a Tornado Interception Vehicle by adding an exterior roll cage and screws to anchor it to the ground. This is where liberties start to be taken: Owens’ beat-up Ram is meant to bolt into the ground so it can directly enter tornadoes, but it’s rigged with a welded steel cage, keeping its body in place with no additional armor. Real vehicles in the field look a lot less romantic, covered like an armadillo with layers of armor protecting the passengers from the flying debris of a tornado. The look of these armored vehicles wasn’t right for a Hollywood production; the cage on the Twisters truck was an answer to hold on to some level of legitimacy.
With nearly every piece customized and replaced to make it a fair opponent to Mother Nature, true storm-chasing vehicles are more akin to the Ship of Theseus than the stock vehicles as which they began. The TIV 2 might’ve started out as a Ram, but now it’s the TIV 2.
"If you strip down the TIV 2, it’s a Dodge mega cab, but it's really not a Dodge vehicle when you look at it," Carter said. "We've taken all the bodies off these. Mine is an ‘03 Chevrolet Tahoe. If you take all the body off and you reconstruct all of the system, the only thing you’ve got is the motor that’s inside of it. It’s really not anything else to me. Whether it’s Ford or Dodge, the way we look at this is — whoever decides to sponsor us."
"One of my business partners came by and said, 'Tom, it looks ugly,'" Carter laughed as he recounted. “I said, 'Robert, it’s not a Cadillac.'"
"It’s a tool, it’s made for one job: to go inside a tornado. We’re sitting in bare metal with roll cages, and we barely have any air conditioning. Our windows don’t roll down, everything has to be sealed with no airflow. Any little tiny bit of airflow will kill you."
Back in 2022, Carter found himself sitting in the middle of a tornado in a conventional, non-chase vehicle. High gas prices led him to make the choice to enter a storm system in his wife’s car instead of his armored vehicle or modified F-250, which get 2.2 and 5.5 mpg respectively.
"I was praying when it hit us, the tornado recirculated, and it dropped down,” Carter said. “I was in between the two velocities — I was in between the two tornadoes at the same time — and they were swirling around like a figure eight. They were violent, very violent. My wife was with me, she’s a chaser too, and my PTSD German shepherd. When you do this, you learn how to focus; if you go into it panic attack-ing in the fetal position, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. You won’t know how to react."
The new Twisters does what it's supposed to do. It's nostalgic and fun for moviegoers, and it makes the Ram truck look badass — but most importantly, it doesn't shy away from the path of destruction and trauma that these storms leave in their path.
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