World’s First Lego Drivable Car Made by Aussie [VIDEO]
An Aussie from Melbourne, Steve Sammartino, co-created the world's first Lego drivable and life-sized car from 500,000 pieces of Lego and powered by four orbital engines with 256 pistons running on air, carsGuide reports.
He co-created the car with Romanian tech genius Raul Oaida.
According to the tandem, the Lego car can only run with top speed of around 20-30km/h.
"We were scared of a Lego explosion so we drove it slowly," the tandem told CarsGuide.
According to Mr Sammartino, their creation was motivated by their desire to show that there can still be innovations left unexplored by other car enthusiasts, designers and even manufacturers.
"(I wanted) to do something interesting that shows there are a myriad of possible innovations for cars. We wanted to be an example to open people's minds... something the car industry needs," said Mr Sammartino.
The creators also shared that in as much as Lego were stuff that even kids can easily play and invent something with, the drivable Lego car that they created was technically challenging.
"The biggest (challenge)? Building the engine and getting the gearing right. It is very tough to hold the torque," he said.
The duo admitted that they do not have solid plans for the car yet, whether they keep it to themselves or sell it. But rumour has it that a famed car collector in the U.S. was interested to buy their creation.
"We hear Jay Leno wants to buy the car. We are open to offers to display it at shows too."
As for raising fundings for this project, Mr Sammartino said that they were thankful for their followers on Twitter who contributed to make the drivable Lego car possible. The project was crowdfunded by 40 Australians. It was then built in Romania and then shipped to confidential location in Melbourne for final touches.
"The response was in mere days. I have a strong following on twitter and my blog which is were I promoted it. I did it independently rather than a traditional crowd funding site, as there was no real commercial output."
Mr Sammartino and Mr Oaida had also previously worked together before on a Lego space shuttle that became popular across the Internet and mainstream media.
Watch video here:
(credit: Steve Sammartino YouTube page)