"A Humvee is a toy compared to this," says Bran Ferren of his ultra-rugged MaxiMog base vehicle. From a distance it may look like a typical military vehicle, but in reality, the tops of the tires reach to a point as high as the average man's chest. Created for science, it becomes head-turning vehicular art when it ventures onto public roads: Drivers stop and stare, prompting what one project engineer terms a "mogjam."
A brutal midday sun bears down on Bran Ferren as he sips his third Diet Pepsi of the day, leans back, and squints at the Trona pinnacles, which shimmer in the Mojave Desert heat. He's already pinking up beneath a coat of SPF 50 sunscreen. He has had a small, bad, fast-food breakfast after a night with only three hours of sleep. A vicious wind blows grit in his face. So how does he feel? "Euphoric. This is absolute perfection." Ferren, the hyperactive, charismatic polymath who once headed Disney's famed team of Imagineering researchers, is happy because he has just climbed into an amazing vehicle, one that took him five years and millions (he won't say how many) of his own dollars to create. Today, in this unforgiving place, he is taking it out for its first off-road shakedown. Once he massages out some of the kinks, he says, this go-anywhere ultra-SUV could revolutionize in-the-field scientific research. "Most everything hasn't been explored, and our planet is no exception," he says, settling into the navigator's chair (like everything else about the vehicle, it is pure sybaritism, featuring full-grain leather, independent air suspension, and seven-way adjustable support). "Archaeology, paleontology, geology—none of the 'ologies' have been able to examine huge portions of the earth in a meaningful way. This is the next generation of exploration." Packed with every communications and navigation gadget known to man, the brawny vehicle—with its equally advanced, powered-wheel trailer in tow—can climb a 45-degree slope, ford 6-foot-deep rivers, and scramble over 3-foot-high boulders. For narrow backcountry trails or Yokohama alleys, there is a custom motorcycle strapped to the trailer. Soon to be added are a remote-controlled surveillance airplane, a small jet boat, and an unmanned submersible. Ferren's idea is that these various vehicles will form a self-contained research convoy that can go anywhere and investigate anything, all the while remaining in fat-bandwidth contact with each other and the world at large.
