Bagger 288

Krupp finished this bucket-wheel excavator in 1978, and at about 13,500 metric tons, 96 meters tall and 220 meters long it is the machine most people picture when they hear "world's biggest vehicle." Its wheel carries 18 buckets of 6.6 cubic meters each and can strip 240,000 cubic meters of earth a day, yet it takes only a handful of people to run it. Its best story is the 2001 move from the Hambach mine to Garzweiler, crawling at a few meters a minute across roads, a railway and the river Erft. For the outright weight record, look to its younger sibling Bagger 293, which Guinness lists at 14,196 metric tons.