Steel. Three thousand pounds of pure iron. That’s what a car is made out of, right? Not necessarily. All over the planet, there are cars that are made out of… well, everything.

 

 

 

 

 

The Lego Ford Explorer SUV

 

Yes, it’s true. Ford teamed up with the Legoland Theme Park in Orlando, Florida and built an SUV out of more than 380,000 Lego bricks weighing almost 2,700 pounds (a 2012 Ford Explorer SUV weighs almost 4,600 pounds). It is currently displayed in Legoland at the Ford Driving School for Children. Kids ages six through thirteen can attend the attraction, which shows them the accelerator, the brake, traffic signs, etc. They then get to drive in their own electric car, going no more than three miles per hour, in order to receive their official Legoland Driver’s License.

 

 

Lactose-Intolerant? Be Careful Around This One

From the American Dairy Association comes the almost 3,000-pound, all-cheddar “World’s Cheesiest Car.” It’s five feet tall, six feet wide, twelve feet long and carved from almost 3,500 pounds of cheddar cheese supplied by Cabot Creamery. It is an authentic built-to-scale replica built to accompany the primary cheese paint scheme featured on Terry Labonte’s (a semi-retired NASCAR driver) No. 5 Kellogg’s-”Got Milk?” Chevrolet, which debuted in the Pontiac Excitement 400 in 2003. To see photos of the car, go to www.ilovecheese.com or www.kelloggsracing.com.

 

A Car That Can Help You Stay Healthy

Well, not really, but scientists in Brazil say that people could be driving a car made from pineapples and bananas in less than two years. Apparently, plastic reinforced with microscopic fibers from fruits such as pineapples and bananas will help to not only make car bodies, but engine parts as well. The plastic is said to be “30 times lighter and three to four times stronger than regular plastic.” This will help reduce the weight of cars, which, in turn, makes them more eco-friendly. In addition, these plastics resist heat and water better than normal plastic does. It’ll be interesting to buy one of these cars and see if it’s a lemon (ha!).

 

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend – or a Close Second

 

Hans Burie’s Belgian Chocolate Car is hands-down the best chocolate vehicle you will ever drive. OK, you can’t drive it (but can you take a bath in it?). The chocolate car is the same size as a European car called the Opel. From seven in the morning until ten at night for four weeks straight, chocolatiers worked to build the chocolate car. Everything in the entire car is made out of Belgian chocolate. With a chocolate car, who needs diamonds?

 

Formula One Replicas

 

No, it’s not something to feed your baby. A Formula One (F1) is the most technically advanced racing car in the world, and it is incredibly, unbelievably expensive. It is a single-seated racing car with front and rear wings, and the engine is mounted right behind the driver. Aerodynamics is what makes this car a superior racing machine.

Truly amazing replicas of F1 cars are always being crafted. The following are just a few examples of the unusual materials people have used to construct F1 replicas.

Bread

One very starchy F1 replica was built out of a thousand loaves of twenty-two different varieties of bread. Put it together with the World’s Cheesiest Car and a thousand bottles of red wine, and you have a heck of a fondue party.

 

 

Matchsticks

Check this one out: 956,000 matchsticks were used to make a full-size replica of a McLaren 4/14 F1 vehicle. Michael Arndt was the creator of this potential fire hazard, but all kidding aside, it must take an incredible amount of patience to build a car of this magnitude with almost a million matchsticks. People probably didn’t smoke in the area for weeks.

 

Puma Clothes

This F1 replica pays homage to the Puma clothing brand in a way that just sporting a T-shirt never could. Puma-everything went into this car: hats, socks, sandals, shirts, pants… You get the idea. This brings an all-new meaning to the “wear and tear” of a car.

 

Puma Shoeboxe

What do you do with all the empty boxes lying around after you build a Puma clothing car? Build a Puma shoebox car, of course! Three brothers named Oscar, Ben, and Luke Wilson cut Puma shoeboxes into different kinds of shapes and then hand-fixed them to make an F1 replica. With all this enthusiasm, Puma should consider adopting a new slogan — “Puma: The next step in F1 cars.” Just kidding.

 

Legos

What is it about people building life-size Lego cars? And an F1 Lego car, to boot! In October of 2008, Leon Ktijgsman drove an 80,000-Lego brick Ferrari down the streets of Amsterdam to promote Legoland. The Lego Ford Explorer consists of almost 400,000 Lego bricks, while the F1 Lego Ferrari has only 80,000. Maybe people are just smaller in Amsterdam.

 

The last replica on this list is a topiary scene formed entirely out of hedges, featuring an F1 reticle with three mechanics working on it. Gardeners lovingly maintain the topiary monthly – by hand. The car is 11 feet long, and the mechanics are six feet tall.

 

And you thought cars were only made out of steel…

 

This post was written and contributed by Edson Farnell. Edson writes about various automotive topics for a variety of publications, like this piece on snow tires. Edson is also constantly looking for auto parts online for his countless restoration projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Automobile, Autos, Cars