Volvo Trucks president stars in stunt video 'The Hook'; now he's done

Volvo Trucks president stars in stunt video ‘The Hook’; now he’s done

By Amy Hubbard

Sept. 3, 2013 1:57 PM PT

Despite the fact that he “doesn’t like heights,” Volvo Trucks President Claes Nilsson recently spent two hours standing on the front panel of a Volvo FMX construction truck dangling 66 feet above the ocean.

There was no stunt double. It really was Nilsson, in suit and tie, buffeted by the wind high above Sweden’s Gothenburg harbor, for the company’s latest stunt video, “The Hook.”

In a grand understatement, Nilsson said: “I had butterflies in my tummy.”

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This is likely the end of Nilsson’s stunt career. Anders Vilhelmsson, deputy public relations director at Volvo Trucks Commercial, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday morning: “Claes Nilsson will continue to appear in films produced by Volvo Trucks, but not to act as stuntman.”

Nilsson said in a news release that “there were many retakes and filming is a time-consuming process. It was fairly cold -- about 8 degrees above zero -- and the wind was blowing ... so my hands got pretty cold after a while. But it all went very well. Safety was 100% all the way, so I was never really afraid.”

The point of the video, called “The Hook,” was to demonstrate the strength of the truck’s front towing hook.

“It’s all about spotlighting the strength and quality of our construction trucks,” Nilsson said in the release. “And you can’t do that more clearly than by hoisting the 15 ton truck up into the air via its own towing hook.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the video was approaching 1 million views on YouTube. A previous Volvo Trucks video also went viral. “The Ballerina Stunt” features highliner Faith Dickey -- who has broken records in rope-walking -- traversing a slackline between moving big rigs as a tunnel approaches.

Videos of more “attention-grabbing tests of our new trucks” are in the works, Vilhelmsson told The Times. He would not reveal when the next one would land.

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Amy Hubbard

Amy Hubbard is a deputy editor on the Fast Break Desk, the Los Angeles Times’ breaking news team. She’s worked in a range of departments at The Times since 1993, including as copy chief for daily Calendar, Travel, Books and the AM Copy Desk; SEO chief; morning editor on the Metro desk; and assistant newsletters editor. In 2015, she began a four-year stint at personal finance website NerdWallet, where she was the Banking editor. Hubbard is a graduate of the University of Missouri, Columbia, School of Journalism.

Volvo Trucks president stars in stunt video ‘The Hook’; now he’s done

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