The Incredible $10,000 Plane Car
QUIRKY car designer Mark Ray is flying high on America's roads - driving a converted light aeroplane. Mark was the brains behind the Plane Car, a fusion of a 2003 Cirrus SR22 and a Chevrolet Tracker - costing around $10,000. Mark, of Atlanta, Georgia, who owns a paper shredding company, was already turning heads in a homemade Boat Car, which made headlines. But his daughter Brianna, thought he was getting bored with it and encouraged him to start a new project. It took five months to build with Steve West of Flex-Fab, Mike Rivera of Rivera's Upholstery and Brandon Geddings of Controlled Motors.
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MotorTranscript
00:00People look in the rear view mirror and they see an airplane and they start panicking.
00:13The plane car is the brainchild of 56-year-old Atlanta resident Mark Ray,
00:18who has previously built a roadworthy boat car.
00:21My 17-year-old daughter Brianna encouraged me to build something else
00:25because she said that I was kind of getting bored with the boat car,
00:29which is still a very unusual vehicle, but I came up with the idea of building a plane car.
00:34The vehicle was constructed from a Chevrolet Tracker and a 2003 Cirrus SR22.
00:40The Cirrus was perfect for me. It was just perfect.
00:43And the aircraft, luckily enough, has a fiberglass body,
00:48which makes it a little bit lighter weight, but much more durable than your average aluminum aircraft.
01:00Despite having a vision for his project, Mark was happy to let others do the hard work.
01:06I'm not the type of individual that gets their hands real dirty
01:10and involved in ripping metal and cutting things and whatever.
01:13I'd rather come up with the idea, write the check and then have the vehicle when it's done.
01:19I went to a body shop and he took the entire body off.
01:24It was a coming collision where I live.
01:26Then I went to another shop, FlexFab, also in my area.
01:30They fabricated the two together to make it one.
01:33The next challenge was to make his creation road legal.
01:37I put on side view mirrors, taillights, it has headlights,
01:42it has a rear view mirror, it's got a tag light, it's got seat belts, and yes, it's passed emissions.
01:48The tail used to come out another, I'd say, 15 or 20 inches.
01:53I had to cut that back so that the vehicle would be able to be driven down the street
01:58without ripping into other cars along the road.
02:01And Mark carried out the finishing touches to the plane car himself.
02:05When I did get the vehicle finished, I painted it myself and I striped it and decaled it myself.
02:11This vehicle took me about five months to put together.
02:14It cost me a little under $10,000.
02:17Despite the vehicle's unique look, it still acts as a family runaround.
02:21I take my son to school in it and school goes crazy.
02:25All the people just go nuts when I show up with that airplane.
02:28And I have a good time. We go out for dinner in it.
02:31We come outside and there's a full crowd of people.
02:34And I have to answer a ton of questions about the plane, but that's part of the game.
02:39You have an unusual vehicle, you've got to answer a lot of questions.
02:42But I really do like it a lot and I'm going to enjoy it and pass this one down to probably my son.
02:48But Mark could be persuaded to part with his unusual mode of transport.
02:52I've had a few people ask if it was for sale.
02:55I told them not right now, but if the right price was offered to me, I'd sell it.
03:00Maybe. Maybe. Money talks.