It’s a jet-powered go-kart!
This takes “go-kart” to a whole new level.
Colin Furze is a plumber from Lincolnshire. He’s also a man well known to the web for his tenacious shed-based tinkerage, childish enthusiasm and inherent disregard for safety.
Colin’s previous work includes magnet gravity-defying boots, the world’s fastest mobility scooter, and pizza delivery bikes equipped with flamethrowers. But for his latest stunt, Mr Furze strapped a whopping great jet engine to a go-kart.
To make the shanty kart work, Furze refurbed and stretched an old kart chassis so the jet system (the bit that looks like a potato gun for Rubeus Hagrid) could be welded on, and the plumbing for the unique diesel-gas fueling system added.
And when Colin’s kart fires up, boy does it fire up.
In what looks like the starting sequence to a shuttle launch, driving Colin’s kart is basically the lift-off scene from Apollo 13, but taking place on the horizontal axis, rather than vertical.
The two gas tanks and recycled fire extinguisher full of diesel (yep, really) work in combination with a leaf blower to power the kart onto a hairy 61mph – slow by the standards of jet-powered things, but mighty fast by kart standards, especially considering there’s no safety measures in place whatsoever. And also because there’s a 12ft long glowstick belching great balls of fire inches away from his head.
If we were in Colin’s (presumably slightly scorched) shoes, we might have located a slightly smoother runway on which to test the jet-kart. And perhaps rather more in the way of fireproof clothing.
We admire the engineering, enthusiasm and iron testicles of the excitable Mr Furze. But please, Internet, if you just so happen to stumble upon a disused military jet, please don’t try this at home.
