The UK’s Daily Mail reports that Phil Bissett, a 62 year old former gravedigger, transformed a steel casket into a street-legal single-seat automobile that does 100 mph, using the engine from his daughter’s 1972 VW. He acquired the casket — you guessed it — on ebay.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. The casket originally cost 1500 British pounds. He got it for just 98 pounds — about $146 at today’s exchange rate. That’s 93 percent off! The article doesn’t say how much he paid for the assorted spare parts from other vehicles needed to turn the casket into an automobile, nor does it explain what his daughter is doing for transportation now that the engine from her car powers his deathmobile. Still, it’s a nice-looking little sports car, and I’ll bet it cost less and is more reliable than that fine piece of British automotive engineering I used to own, an MG Midget.
Bissett told the reporter, “I’ve learned never to go on the internet when you’ve had a drink. My friend said I’d never be able to turn it into a car but I knew I could.”
This must be what the wonks mean when they say the Internet is an “enabling technology.”
(Be sure to check out the Daily Mail link above to see the cool photos!)
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.