What does this have to do with geeks? Well, Dobbertin switched gears in the early 90s, and sold off most of his hot rods to build the Dobbertin Surface Orbiter. He started with a milk tanker trailer and turned it into the thing that your pansy little Hummer has nightmares about.
Not one to sit around and ponder his geekiness, Dobbertin then drove the Surface Orbiter halfway around the world. In 1995, he took it to South America, logging over 30,000 miles on land and 3,000 miles on sea in waves up to 18 feet high (unlike the Terrawind, this baby can hit the water with no prep time – just drive until the road ends and keep going). He even took it through the Panama Canal. Apparently he was going to try to go all the way around the globe, but ran out of money halfway through. Too bad.
Still, the Surface Orbitor stands as an awesome monument to the geek in all of us.
(A sad postscript to the story is that the adventure took a toll on the Dobbertin marriage and the Orbiter went on the auction block for $200,000 to settle the divorce. This was 1999 – I’ve lost track of it since. Anyone know what happened to it?)