44-year-old Shaun Mitchell, from West Lynn, Norfolk is a newspaper delivery man with an unusual passion for military vehicles. He likes them so much he put together a regular fleet of tanks, anti aircraft guns, jeeps and other vehicles, right in his backyard.

Shaun became obsessed with military vehicles when he was 18 years old, and he remembers the first one he saved money for was a World War 2 Austin Champ army jeep. Since then, this self-taught mechanic has bought and restored an impressive collection of vehicles that includes tanks, tankettes and anti-aircraft guns. He stores most of them in his back garden and when the weather allows it, he drives them through his local village.

”I get a thrill from working on something that’s totally different and the adrenalin pumps when you drive them out onto the road. It’s the smell and the whole atmosphere, people look at you and wave, everyone is interested in the vehicle.” Shaun says about his passion, but while his friends and family approve of his unusual hobby, because they get to ride around in his military vehicles, he admits it has affected his love life in a negative way. Because of his obsession with military vehicles, he had to end a 12 year relationship and is now looking for a girl who actually likes tanks as much as he does.

Shaun’s impressive collection of military vehicles includes an 8.1 tonne street-legal Sabre tank that reaches 50 mph, a WWII 1945 GMS Bolster Truck, a Polsten 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, a 1929 Carden-loyd machine-gun carrier, a Self-Propelled Abbot fighting vehicle and two Ferret Scout cars. Asked about how much they’re all worth, the collector said the Sabre alone is worth around $32,000.

”I don’t drink or smoke, I have no bad habits apart from the compulsion to buy military vehicles.” claims Shaun, who works as a newspaper delivery man, but spends two days a week restoring other military vehicles for a local tractor dealership.

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Throughout the years I’ve been writing on Oddity Central, I’ve seen some pretty amazing car models built out of the most unusual materials, and edible cars have definitely been among the most impressive. I’ve featured some of them on this blog, and today I thought I’d make a list of the coolest life-size cars made of things you love to eat.

Chococar

This tasty looking thing was created exclusively out of chocolate, and was exhibited in SIngapore’s Royal Plaza on Scotts, back in 2008. The 4.7 meters-long, 2 meters-wide Formula 1 car weighed around 90 kilograms and was made with white, dark and milk chocolate. The design alone took 44 days to complete, and a team of eight chocolatiers worked 7 days and nights on it.

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The Cars Dream Restaurant, in the city of Surabaya, Indonesia, features ten vintage cars converted into furniture, making it the ideal place to dine if you’re into cars.

Bobby Handojo Gunawan, owner of the Cars Dream Restaurant, says he has been dreaming about opening an automotive-themed restaurant for 15 years, and since he’s always been passionate about tuning cars, using them as furniture just came naturally. With ten vintage automobiles converted into unique restaurant furniture and accessories, the Cars Dream Restaurant holds the Guinness record for Most Cars on Display in a Restaurant.

Here are some of the auto wonders you can see in this unusual Indonesian venue:

• a red 1949 Mercedes Benz Limousine  converted into a big dining table for 20 people;
• a red 1969 Chevrolet Corvette converted into a beautiful aquarium with 100 fish;
• a yellow 1969 Lotus turned into an organ and audio system;
• two 1961 Cadillacs transformed into a cozy seating area;
• a 1962 Chevrolet Impala converted into a cool dinning table

The Cars Dream Restaurant also features a 1954 Mercedes Gullwig 300 SL and a 1961 Morris Mini Cooper set on display for auto enthusiasts to admire. They don’t have an engine anymore, but they look just as good as the day they were shipped off from the factory.

If you’re ever in Surabaya,and you have a thing for classic cars, you must stop by the Cars Dream Restaurant, at 68 Raya Menganti.

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Whether it’s by tuning their cars or driving them like madmen, car enthusiasts are always looking for ways to stand out, and now, thanks to the Cruisin Caskets, they can even go out in style.

However scary and sad, death is a part of life, so if you can’t cheat it, why not make the most of it? For car lovers who want to take their passion for automobiles in the grave with them, the guys at Cruisin Caskets offer the perfect solution – a car-shaped coffin made of fiber glass that can be shaped like any model car, from the 50s classics to today’s futuristic rides.

This “perfect way for the car aficionado to express their love for cars” can be converted into a nice-looking beer cooler, before it serves its permanent purpose, but the idea of seeing what’s to be my final resting place every time I want a beer doesn’t make much sense to me. Read More »

A BMW Z4 model made from hundreds of bricks is now being sold for $125,000.

Chinese artist Dai Geng spent more than a year cementing bricks together and then carving the massive block into an impressive replica of the 155 mhp BMW Z4. Except for the windows, everything is made from brick, even the hinges that allow the door to open and close just like metal ones. The car was unveiled in January 2010, and has been on display, in Shenzheng City, for the last year. Now the artist wants to sell it and make a nice profit.

Although this brick BMW Z4 is definitely an impressive replica, down to the interior trimmings, the price tag of $125,000 seems prohibitive. But Dai Geng is confident that one of China’s rich businessmen will want to buy it as and ornament for their gardens…

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The Brass Van is a unique art car completely covered with various brass items. Also known as the “California Fantasy Van”, this artwork on four wheels took 22 years to complete.

Hunter Mann is the present owner of the Brass Van, but it was actually his late godfather, Ernie Steingold, who crated it. A vacuum-cleaner repairman, Steingold first started adding brass to his 1975 GMC van, in the early 1980s and continued doing so for the next 20 years or so. It all started one day, when he decided to attach three brass elephants to the hood, as ornaments. Then he got it into his head to cover the vehicle with brass coins, and he did just that – around $15,000 worth of coins, at the time he finished the job. From there on in, he just kept adding brass.

Mann, the current owner of the Brass van, says there are around 5,000 pieces of brass presently attached to his vehicle, weighing about 10,000 pounds. In fact, this car is so heavy, its tires have to be changed every 4,000 miles, and I don’t even want to think about the mileage…

As you would expect, Hunter Mann gets pulled over by police, about once every five days. Most of the officers just want to ask him about his Brass van and take photos with it. Even though he gets asked the same questions every time, Mann never gets tired of answering them.

When it’s not on tour, the Brass Van can be found at ArtCar World, a museum for art cars, in Douglas, Arizona. Just in case you were wondering about how much such a unique vehicle costs, the Brass van was appraised at $350,000.

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2010 was an exceptional year for Red Bull Racing, with Sebastian Vettel scoring the first Formula One World Championship title, in Abu Dhabi. To celebrate the event, Red Bull has created a life-size Formula One car replica, out of Red Bull bottles. The unique artwork is on display at a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, and is made up of 2,615 bottles of Red Bull energy drink.

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Known as Dekotora, Decotora, or simply as Japanese art trucks, these incredible masterpieces on four wheels have become a symbol of Japan.

Dekotora is an abbreviation for “decoration truck”, and if you can say something about these trucks it’s that they are very decorated. That’s basically what defines the Dekotora art movement – adding as many decorations to your truck, as you possibly can, while keeping it operational. And making use of the ingenuity that defines the Japanese, they have been able to create some truly impressive rigs that blow your mind. Neon lights, flashy spoilers, manga and kabuki artworks are all part of a Dekotora artist’s arsenal, in his quest of creating the flashiest truck possible.

The Dekotora movement was born in 1975, when Toei released the first of its 10-movie series called “Trucker”, which featured a trucker who drove his overly-decorated truck all over Japan. The movie was a huge success, and people started tuning their own big rigs to resemble what they saw on screen. Dekotora truckers are very passionate about what they do, and money is no object when it comes to turning their vehicles into flashy masterpieces. They often form communities where they can show off their creations and interact with other art-truck enthusiasts. Most of them try to adorn the trucks with as many decorations as possible, while keeping them street legal, but there are those who go over the limit and create impressive Dekotora beasts that can only be admired in exhibitions.

There are three main Dekotora styles – Kansai, Kant and Retro, and starting with the late 1990s, the Gundam franchise has had a huge influence on the world of Dekotora. I guess the Japanese love robots and sci-fi,even when it comes to big flashy trucks.

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A Mazda Miata owner used a number of sharpies to give his favorite car some really cool-looking tattoos.

“Mighty” Mike Niemann of Team Miataka Racing spent 22 days and $100 in sharpies giving his 1992 Mazda Miata a radical new look. After carefully drawing the entire thing by hand, he added a clear coat so his impressive masterpiece doesn’t get ruined by the first falling rain drops.

Mike’s sharpie-painted Miata is definitely impressive, but it’s not the first sharpie-tattooed car. That probably goes to this gorgeous Lamborghini.

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Chen Shungui, a Chinese amateur inventor, has spent eight years of his life working on two homemade solar-powered cars .

Chen Shungui, from Jingjiang, China’s Jiangsu province, started working on his solar panel cars in 2002, hoping to create a vehicle with no CO2 footprint. The first vehicle was completed in 2008, and despite its unpolished looks, it managed to run at a max speed of 45 km/h on solar power alone. The roof and hood of the car were completely covered with solar panels, but without a battery, it could only be used on sunny days.

Chen went back to the drawing board, hoping to improve its creation in such a way that it could be used on cloudy days and for longer drives. Just a few days ago, he unveiled his second homemade car, with a whole new look, as well as a solar battery that guarantees enough power for a 150 km trip. The new version has a max speed of 60 km/h.

The two innovative solar-powered cars cost Chen Shungui a total of $74,943 and took eight years to complete.

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Let’s face it, we’d all love to drive a Lamborghini, but few of us can actually afford to buy one. The 1994 Chevrolet Camaro, on the other hand, is a lot cheaper and looks almost the same as a Lamborghini Gallardo. Well, at least this one does.

Looking at the Rev Angel for the first time, you could probably swear it’s the beautiful Lamborghini Gallardo you’ve always dreamed of. It certainly looks the part, but under that gorgeous exterior, you’ll discover the framework of a humble old 1994 Chevrolet Camaro. Aww, come on, no need to be disappointed now, it’s a perfectly good Lambo replica, and the owner just changed the original engine with a 300 HP LT1 engine that he guarantees will help you beat any tuner cars, old Corvettes and muscle cars.

And you know the best thing about Rev Angel? It cost only $3,000. That’s a worthy price to pay for such a nice looking replica of the Lamborghini Gallardo.

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In an attempt to prove their products are by no means disposable, German car maker Smart has teamed up with a cardboard manufacturer and designer Sarah Illenberger to created the world’s first cardboard-wrapped Smart.

It might sound and look stupid, but this cardboard Smart aims to somehow disprove the rumors that Smart cars are disposable. They want to show the world that even covered by heaps of  high-quality reusable cardboard blocks, their Smart ForTwo model makes a lasting impression. I don’t know about the “lasting” part, but it’s definitely caught my attention.

Renowned designer Sarah Illenberger applied all the cardboard blocks by hand, in a pixel-like fashion that she feels emphasizes the sustainability of both the car and material.

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That’s how the owner of this unique car describes his creation on his Flickr stream, and the geek in me agrees with him 100%.

The Toy Car is a one-of-a-kind vehicle covered with thousands of toys that the owner most likely collected as a child. Probably eager to show off his massive collection, or just wanting to give his Saab a second life as a cool art-car, the man behind this crazy creation glued all these toys all over the body of  his old ride.

I’m sure he can’t go too fast in that car anymore, for fear of his toys flying off the hood, but who needs speed when you can just cruise around town flaunting your geek spirit for everyone to see.

Check out more photos of the awesome Toy Car on AzyxA’s Flickr stream.

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As Robin would  say: “Jeepers Batman, look, a 1985 Porsche 944 Batmobile!”

I’ll be the first to admit Porsche makes some really good sport cars, although they aren’t the most affordable. But as cool as they are, Porsche roadsters will never be as awesome as any Batmobile, and this old Porsche 94s is a prime example.

In an attempt to copy the Batmobile from Tim Burton’s Batman, the owner of this 1985 Porsche 944 fitted it with two .223 machine-gun replicas that light up, for effect, some batwings for the rear wheels, pipes that come out of the car’s doors, as well as a big Batman logo on the hood, and some smaller ones on the rims.

On the inside, he opted for a yellow-black color theme, the Batman logo on the steering-wheel, and Batman rubber mats. Since he didn’t manage to change the original 2.5 liter engine of the Porsche, he added a NOS Sniper pack, to at least give you a chance at catching fleeing baddies.

It’s definitely not the most impressive Batmobile I’ve featured on Oddity Central, and that’s probably why he practically gave it away for only $6.500.

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Spotted on a road-trip across the United States, this Cheeseburger Truck has to be one of the coolest looking trucks in the world. I don’t know how they did it, but the guys at the Westwood Flea Market made their truck look so real I wouldn’t be surprised if people started chasing after it trying to get a bite.

Credit goes to nycscout for taking the photos and sharing them with the rest f us.

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