“At full tilt”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

Each language picks the fastest thing it knows. For English it was a medieval knight: to tilt was to charge at an opponent with a lance in a joust. For French it was the car: en quatrième vitesse, in fourth gear, the top gear when the phrase was coined.

Spanish and Italian stay with legs: a horse's hooves, a uña de caballo, or legs kicked up high, a gambe levate. Mexican Spanish a todo mecate pulls a rope as far as it will go.