Uno Com Escada / Uno With A Ladder

Submission 1,019

Part of a series on Brazil. [View Related Entries]

About

The Uno Com Escada (Eng: Uno With A Ladder) refers to an internet legend stating that if the Italian brand car Fiat Uno has a ladder on top, it is the fastest racing car. The meme was created by Brazilians around 2014 after the popular car was widely used by electricity and telecom companies as a company vehicle.

Origin

The earliest mention of the "Uno Com Escada" legend was posted on October 3rd, 2014 by the Facebook^[1] page @puntatacco, which shared a picture showing several Uno cars with ladders alongside a caption that implied Unos with ladders could surpass 800hp. Within nine years, the post (shown below) received more than 83 likes and five shares.

Spread

In the following years, more lore about Unos with ladders was shared on the internet. A 2016 article by Auto Entusiastas^[2] did a full investigation of the car's potential and its relation to Brazilian culture. In October 2017, the Italian brand that manufactures the car, Fiat, promoted an "Unos with ladders" special race ad on social media to announce the name of its new car. The video garnered 150,000 plays and 3,300 likes on YouTube^[3] in five years (seen below).

On March 17th, 2017, YouTube^[4] channel @MotorClubLRV shared a race between an Uno with a ladder and a Camaro sports car. The race ended with Uno's win, and the video garnered 1.5 million plays and 28,000 likes in five years (seen below).

The YouTube^[5] user @RDGameplay showed a gameplay of a Grand Theft Auto mod in which an Uno with a ladder can be played in the game. Posted on March 11th, 2022, the video garnered 149,000 plays and 10,000 likes in one year (seen below).