Automotive

Video: Extraordinary wooden vehicle hits the streets

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Built from a concept inspired by generative AI, this eye-catching vehicle showcases its creator's extraordinary woodworking skills
ND Woodworking Art
Built from a concept inspired by generative AI, this eye-catching vehicle showcases its creator's extraordinary woodworking skills
ND Woodworking Art
Not a common sight in my neck of the woods
ND Woodworking Art
There's not much room to see out the front, over the gently moving mechanical moustache
ND Woodworking Art
Yeah, dad made a wooden time machine car, but check out these scissors!
ND Woodworking Art
Like a ram skull rolling down the street
ND Woodworking Art
The internal lighting shows off this machine's glorious, needless complexity
ND Woodworking Art
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Designed to represent the concept of a time machine, and built by a talented woodworking engineer, this extraordinary wooden vehicle is now turning heads as it whirrs and rattles through the streets of Vietnam.

It's the work of YouTube creator Truong Van Dao, who runs a wildly successful channel entirely devoted to showcasing his handiwork making wooden vehicles. His progression over the last three years has been remarkable; he started out simply carving shoebox-sized replicas of classic luxury cars and supercars, then quickly found worldwide attention when he put together a small wooden Ferrari replica his son could sit in and get pushed about.

The Ferrari looked pretty amazing, but he soon topped it with an exquisitely detailed carving of a Bugatti Centodieci, again at a roughly one-third to one-half-size scale his son could sit in. And this time, it had working steering, and a small electric drivetrain to pootle around with. I mean, just look:

From there, the audience was well established, and the projects increased in size and complexity. Tanks. Trains. Scooters, and of course all manner of gorgeous mini-supercars. He didn't stop at what was getting to showrooms, either, making beautiful, working recreations of some wild concept cars, including the Lamborghini Vision GT, Audi Skysphere and Mercedes Vision AVTR:

But the project that really caught our eye leaves the high-falutin' realm of the concept car for the even higher-falutin' realm of pure mechanical fantasy art. Truong sat down and played with generative AI to come up with an inspiration for the design, then put together a simple metal frame, steering and suspension system, and a small electric drivetrain, before getting down to the woodwork.

He furnished the vehicle with chunky wooden front wheels, with elaborate clockwork-esque hubs, echoed at the back with enormous snail-shell hoops reminiscent of reverse ram horns. He also gave it a curved and slatted wooden roof and some headlights and internal neons.

Like a ram skull rolling down the street
ND Woodworking Art

Then he started to get weird, adding a delightfully complex series of cog-driven lever mechanisms at the front, which can be switched on to achieve a wobbling undulation that Dr. Zoidberg would probably find highly arousing. It's a little like the wind-powered Strandbeest sculptures that walk their way down Dutch beaches, except electrically powered and bearing no actual relation to the movement of the vehicle, which is driven separately.

Needlessly complicated? Sure. Impractical? Absolutely. The locals giggle as he trundles it slowly down the street, peeking through a tiny slot over the gently working alien mandibles for forward vision.

Yeah, dad made a wooden time machine car, but check out these scissors!
ND Woodworking Art

But it has a strange beauty about it, and it's by far the weirdest vehicle we've seen this week. Truong's kids certainly seem to dig rolling around in it. Enjoy a rather relaxing build video below – and if you have any idea what the start bit is supposed to be about with all the pushing, let me know in the comments!

Source: ND Woodworking Art

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5 comments
sduff
I suppose the start of the video was supposed to show Dad trying to borrow a neighbor's toy car for his son, and the nasty neighbor saying "No, build your own!".
Tacky-on
OK. I think the pushing was his wife was showing anger at him for getting their child a dumb ordinary toy car. She wanted him to get him something better. So he ended up building a show piece that for some reason, makes me suspect we really are living in a simulation and make stuff like that for the entertainment of the coders.
Karmudjun
Thanks Loz, another article on something I certainly wouldn't want - even for bragging rights! The useless gears, moving linkages in the front, and the color changes are all inspiring for children, but this would not be useful on our street or in our town. I looked at the video for a few minutes and realized it was a set-up all staged by this guy building it. Not only is he a decent professional woodworker, but he is a decent metalworking engineer. His intro on the video of a neighbor woman pushing him away (Clearly not his wife or the mother of his children - she puts another child in the store bought toy car! So all that intro was to pique interest in the long drawn out process of building a wooden car powered by an electric motor. Innovative - only good for the children!
JohnH
Here is a man with a passion who enjoys working with his hands.
Nobody
The cost of that wood in my area would almost match a real sports car.