It usually takes millions of dollars to develop new car models. But some car enthusiasts have done it with their own means, reflecting their own personal tastes. Here are five impressive designs.
Image: DW
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5 vehicles built by car enthusiasts that are guaranteed to turn heads
It usually takes millions of dollars to develop new car models. But some car enthusiasts have done it with their own means, reflecting their own personal tastes. Here are five impressive designs.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim
The Fahrradi Farfalla FFX
Bicycle pedals instead of gas pedals - the Fahrradi is not what it appears to be. The artist Hannes Langeder added a Plastok and cardboard body onto a two-person pedal car, playing with design elements of different Ferrari models. The presumably slowest race car in the world is also a plea for deceleration.
Image: DW
The Tabby
Two years ago, the Italian company OSVehicle released an electric car to be assembled by consumers. It can be ordered online and then built in just an hour. It is an open source vehicle, which means the plans are available to everyone on the internet and can be improved by anyone, too. The latest model, the Tabby EVO, costs about 11,000 euros ($12,330).
Image: www.osvehicle.com
The Filandi Ever S
The Italian body shop owner Moreno Filandi, who runs a body repair shop, couldn't afford to buy a supercar, so he simply built his own. Within four years, he upgraded the core of a Mercedes SL into a futuristic sports car. The design of the aluminum body is somewhat unconventional, but his hard work certainly deserves recognition.
Image: DW
The Cosmotron
This car seems to have been invented for a science fiction film. The Plexiglas dome over the driver's cab and an exposed chrome six-cylinder engine make the Cosmotron a real eye-catcher. It also happens to be street-legal. The creator of this unique piece is the British carpenter Paul Bacon. He worked on his dream car for 18 months in his garden shed.
Image: Imago/S. Geisler
The Brutus
A powerful 750-horsepower engine hides under its hood. The Brutus combines the engine of an airplane from the 1920s with the body of a racing car from 1907. It was built by a team from the Auto & Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Germany. The Brutus is infernally loud, and it is said to spit out fire when it starts. So far, no one has ever dared to take it to its maximal speed.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim
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It looks like a Ferrari, but sometimes even pedestrians outpace it. It's called Fahrradi, a play on the German word for bicycle, "Fahrrad." As the name suggests, the car isn't driven by a high-powered engine, but rather bicycle pedals.
The Fahrradi, presumably the raciest pedal car in the world, was revealed in 2012 as part of an automobile show. The Austrian artist Hans Langeder wanted to offer a humorous comment on society's obsession with speed.
He built a special bicycle frame and covered it with cardboard, plastic sheets and tape, painted everything in red and added a lighting system. His inspiration for the body of his vehicle was the supercar Enzo Ferrari.
However, instead of reaching over 350 km/h (over 217 mph) like the original model, the pedal-powered car rolls at about three to five km/h - depending on how determined its driver is. A special mechanism makes it even slower than a normal bicycle: Only a part of the pedals' force is transmitted to the wheels - a masterpiece of intentional deceleration.
The artist also added gull-wing doors, controlled by a bicycle-chain mechanism. They can open and close while the car is being driven. The complete name of the car, Fahrradi Farfalla FFX, refers to this special feature, as "farfalla" means butterfly in Italian.
In Austria, the Fahrradi can be legally driven on normal roads. With its extra width, all drivers in its vicinity will also have to learn to slow down.
The gallery above reveals other self-built cars that are guaranteed to grab everyone's attention.
The "Fahrradi Farfalla FFX": Slowest sports car on the road
