This week, Vladimir (who prefers not to disclose his last name) took his highly coveted whip, slapped a large decal of his phone number on the back and took off for a 45-minute cruise on North Central Expressway with a running clothes dryer strapped in the truck bed. Captured by drivers all over the highway, he became an overnight internet sensation.
The owner and operator of Handy&Man insists that he does not offer wash-and-dry laundry service.
via YouTube
“I have the YouTube channel that I wanted to make this video for,” Vladimir tells the Observer. “You know, to get some attention and gain some subscribers, and talk about the Cybertruck more. And I just tried it while my [business branding] stickers were on and, you know, it just went sideways."
It was the delicates cycle heard ‘round the internet, and when lauded for his genius marketing stunt, Vladimir insists, “Well, actually it's not. Believe me, it's not.”
“It was intended to be a joke, but for some reason people expect that I do laundry and call me and ask for the laundry service, like laundromat stuff like that," Valdimir says. "But I do home repairs and maintenance. So it’s just, you know, this was part of the joke and people got it wrong.”
Vladimir estimates he’s received from 15 to 20 phone calls per hour since he took his kooky joke public, either hang-ups from curiosity callers or requests for laundry wash-and-dry services.
“I wanted to see the reaction of people for the video content but it came out wrong," he says, “I enjoyed the moment when I was driving because people were so surprised, they were driving home they were all sad and thinking about their own stuff. But as soon as they saw my truck with the dryer running in my bed, they would smile.”
Beyond DFW drivers, the stunt drew the attention of Tesla owner and celebrity technocrat Elon Musk, who called the viral truck-sighting “awesome” on X. Musk also texted Vladimir, but the handyman would not divulge what they discussed in that private interaction.This is awesome https://t.co/E2NmX84q7l
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 29, 2024
Vladimir, the viral clothes-drying Cybertruck driver, certainly got the attention he was looking for, but would very much appreciate it if North Texans would stop asking him to do their laundry.
