By Deartháir
Recently I met up with commenter and Hooniverse legend Number Six. While exploring all the wonder(s) that Calgary has to offer, we stumbled across this delightful little tidbit. Anyone feeling like taking their own life in their hands?
It was in a shop window, and required me to do a bit of gymnastics to get a photo, but thankfully the people working there didn’t seem the least bit interested in me. I would have asked them for some specific details, like what the engine was from, or what actual modifications had been done, but I didn’t want to wake them.
It appears to have a large lawn-mower engine on it, and based on the tubing and piping involved, I actually suspect that NOS bottle could be real. It’s chain driven, and apparently chain-steered, judging by that steering wheel on the front. My personal favourite is the giant gear-lever standing tall and proud.
This doesn’t appear to be your standard back-yard hack-job. Someone has spent a whole lot of time and energy on this. The quality of the build is really quite excellent, and the attention to detail is far more than you might expect.
Much of it, I expect, is there in jest. There are far more toggle-switches and controls than I would think necessary. There is also a boost gauge, and maybe one of our more suicidal tech-savvy commenters can enlighten me, but I don’t see a whole lot of purpose for that, in the absence of any visible turbo or supercharger. So much of the detail is clearly comical, but at the same time, evident of a whole lot of time spent.
I’m slightly afraid of it, but I’m thinking there would be worse ways to end up as a sticky paste on the side of a building. I’d be willing to give it a try. How about you?
Kamil Kaluski
I like it but am a little concerned about the narrow front tires. Steering a live axle kart is hard enough without pushmower sized tires on the front end.
You look at this thing, and your primary reason for concern is with the narrow front tires? That was on my list, but it was WAY down there, significantly after "no way to keep your ass in the seat" and "made out of a fucking Radio Flyer".
But that's just me. 😉
There doesn't seem to be any place to put your feet. Troubling.
Like your going to be piloting long enough to worry about where to put your feet 🙂
This project is just the right amount of stupid.
Pfft, I'd put a tall flag on it and ride it to work!
A buggy whip with a pirate flag.
Aaaarrrrrrrr.
Colin Chapman would be impressed.
Needs moar radio. Has enough flyer.
I can just picture Grandpa cobbling this together for young Eddie Munster's 5th birthday…
"Honey, I've figured out a way to keep little Bobby from being underfoot all the time and for us to have more time to ourselves."
It looks substantially more stable than the CBR600 bar stool.
This is a great amount of psychotic indifference to safety.
I remember the Thrush bird having a cigar in his "teeth" on my dad's Coronet. If you're going to be PC in your promotional material, pick a different line of equipment than straight pipe mufflers, please.
It's not the "Thrush" bird… that bird is a ripoff of Mr. Horsepower. And it never had a cigar in it's beak. The bird in question is Clay Smith Cams "Mr Horsepower", who's been around since the late 50's. And, unlike Thrush, Clay Smith is still in business, making horsepower.
I assume that braking with this vehicle consists of estimating the distance between you and the oncoming solid object, putting it in neutral, and shitting yourself as you steer madly toward two broken tibias and a skull fracture.
That very nearly resulted in pop being sprayed liberally all over my monitor. You're lucky Hooniverse has trained me to finish my drink before reading an entire comment.
Laughter. Tears. Thank you.
I used to pull my baby sister (until she got smart) down dusty dirt trails in a Radio Flyer, going way to fast, sliding and "accidentally" hitting trees so we would crash and flip over like the big cars.
This would have been so much more realistic.
This just went straight to the top of my birthday wish list. I've already come up with ideas to tinker on it. Wonder what shipping would be…