Building Your Own Car Leads to Interesting Results

Jian's faux Lamborghini Reventon can supposedly achieve speeds of up to 160 miles per hour, but we'd be afraid to drive it at 60.

I

f you ever have the urge to hand-build your own Italian supercar, we're about to present to you the right way to do it…and the wrong way.

First, we'll start with the right way. After watching Cannonball Run, Ken Imhoff decided he wanted a Lamborghini Countach like the one in the movie. So he set about building one, in his basement. That was back in 1991.

Wang Jian's homemade Lambo draws attention.

Ten years later, he completed the task. He'd fabricated his own chassis (which he'd also designed), formed the aluminum body by hand, and installed the 351 cubic-inch V-8 engine and 5-speed manual transmission.

He also built an all-aluminum interior with a leather dashboard and a quick-release steering wheel. The 2,700 lb car matched up to real Countach exterior measurements, since Imhoff had used a real one to measure from.

Sure, Imhoff had to figure out how to get the car out of his basement (he hired a contractor to knock down a wall and build a ramp), but he still got his fake Lambo right.

We're not so sure about Chinese farmer Wang Jian. Jian's faux Lamborghini Reventon can supposedly achieve speeds of up to 160 miles per hour, but after seeing pictures of the car, we'd be afraid to drive it at 60. It doesn't look very well put together.

We're not certain of that car's roadworthiness.

That's partially because Jian used a combination of a second-hand Nissan model (which one, we don't know) and a used Santana (Santana is a now-defunct Spanish automaker, we don't know which model Jian used) as the platform for his masterpiece, which cost him about $9,450 to make. We're not sure if an amateur builder can mix platforms successfully and come up with a safe road-going vehicle.

We don't have any further details on Jian's car, and quite frankly, we don't want any. We just want that thing out of our nightmares as soon as possible.

[Sources: Jalopnik, Vancouver Sun]