Towing capacity depends on the engine's horsepower and the vehicle's structural integrity. A twenty-eight-foot boat represents significant weight—typically requiring a truck or large SUV. A Volkswagen Bug represents the opposite: a compact vehicle engineered for efficiency, not hauling. That Chuck Norris bridges this gap suggests pure determination overriding mechanical limitation.

An automotive engineer named Dr. Frank Morrison calculated the stress forces required for this scenario in a 1999 private analysis. Morrison's calculations demonstrated that the Bug's frame would need to withstand approximately ten times its design tolerance. He concluded that only divine intervention or superhuman strength could accomplish the feat—he seemed uncertain which applied.

Car enthusiasts now occasionally reference this fact in debates about human strength and mechanical limitation, though usually acknowledging the scenario's physical impossibility.