If you haven’t seen this photo yet, then here you go! It’s officially our favorite non-flying car ever! But it turns out the plane that makes up the body of the car has a history—thank you, Internet—which makes the whole thing even more fun. And no one was harmed, thank goodness, in the making of this monster car.
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The plane, and we’re guessing most of you got it, is a Commander. It’s a single-engine retractable that people loved, but would have loved a lot more if it had been 15 knots faster. This bad boy, N1349J, was involved in a flight-ending crash in Nevada in 1994. The pilot had just taken off from Henderson, Nevada, when mechanical issues rendered continued to make the flight untenable. He crash-landed the Commander next to a highway, wrecking the plane but saving the day.
If you’re tooling around South Carolina, you might see this street-legal racer, which has a habit of turning heads right-left (and we imagine 360 degrees) when it cruises by. Built from the wrecked fuselage of a 1956 Cessna 310 mated to the chassis of a Toyota van, this plane-car is actually pretty fast on the road, too. The brainchild of Jeff Bloch, also known as Speedycop, the Spirit of LeMons (get it, Lemons, not Lemans), is a race winner, going up against other equally inexpensive track relics in the free-flowing fun fest that is the 24 Hours of LeMons. Check out the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccZIUQYVrsY. It’s a hoot!
