Chinese folks have always had the self-entertaining mindset to compare little things to big renowned things even just for the slightest resemblance. We had a post last year talking about a homemade knockoff Lamborghini by a 25 years old guy. Recently a chef from Zigong City, Sichuan Province became famous on the Internet for spending only about 4000 yuan in designing and handcrafting what netizens called a knockoff “Hummer”.
The 2 meter long, 1.5 meter high homemade auto took Qu Zhibo 3 years to build since he was busy running his own restaurant. Small as it is, it has everything an auto needed, it burns gasoline and can be driven in the similar manners of a normal car. The only difference lies in the starting – one have to start the kart from behind before jumping into the driver seat to drive, since the engine that remodeled from a motorcycle locates at the end.
From distance, the kart looks like Hummer or Jeep used in America military field operations. “I am a military fan, my design is inspired by armored command vehicle. I am thinking painting it camouflage to make it look more of a real thing.” Said Qu. As for craftsmanship, everything from engine cover, seats, car skin etc are completely handmade by Qu himself, except for steering wheel, tires, tank and engine which are bought parts.
“The kart took me 3 years of hard work, I spent days and nights working things out and designing, I am obsessed with it.” Qu smiled, “I spent nearly 4000 yuan in getting the hard wares, to include painting it, it could amount to 5000 yuan.”
Qu said his “Hummer” is for self-entertainment only. He used to run a suburban passenger transportation business so he knows well about what’s inside a car and how to fix small problems. Although the kart is not remotely comparable to that of a mass produced car, it is kind of swaggering to drive. It can go up to 30 km/h.
“I only drive it a little in front of my restaurant.” Qu is aware that it is against national regulation to put a homemade car on the road, “when I lend it to other people, I always warn them repeatedly to keep off the road.”
Qu invited the reporter to have a try. “Push the lever forward to come down a gear, and push it backward to increase, other things are similar to normal car.” Qu instructed the reporter, who practiced loosing clutch, shifting gear, stepping on gas and driving about in front of the restaurant. “Hey, it is kind of swaggering.” commented the reporter.
