Few things will amaze you more than a car built completely out of wood, combining both modern as well as traditional elements. Why wood?, you may ask. Because the one who built it is a carpenter by profession. And why a car? Because he had built a horse carriage and was looking for a more difficult challenge. But he definitely met this challenge as his car has impressed not only his good-willing neighbors, but car experts as well.
Peter Szabo, a Hungarian ethnic from Corunca, Mureş County, spent 4.500 hours working on this car and almost €14.000 on the hard ash wood shell. His family had to be on board with his project because otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to spend so much time away from them. But now both his wife, Julia, after whom he named the car, and his children are very proud of his accomplishment.
Szabo did the entire carpentry on the car, but was helped with the electrical part by a friend of his. One interesting technical innovation that his friend came up with was the that the music and highlights are controlled by a tablet. The hood of the car is controlled electronically and it shelters a Ford Taunus V6 2.3-liter engine.
The car not only functions, reaching at least 55 km per hour, but it is also a beautiful piece of machinery. It has aerodynamic shapes and is beige and mahogany in color. The seats fit in perfectly with the shapes and colors, but they were not built especiallz for the car. Instead, they were borrowed from a Mercedes-Benz and reworked.
Szabo invested a lot of money in the quality of the car and says that there are few concept cars made of good hard wood in the world. He is proud of his results and says that it brought him endless happiness to work on his dream car. He is also satisfied that he has earned the appreciation of fellow Romanians, who also build things with their own hands and know how difficult it is.
Presently, Szabo is planning another wooden car that will have a futuristic design and an electric engine.
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