• 2 days ago
THIS is one car that can dodge traffic - as it is a street-legal DODGEM. The purple vehicle, which looks more at home at a funfair than on the roads, is a fully converted bumper car that runs on petrol. And its owner Tom Evans is more than capable handling the unusual motor as he used to run a fairground. The tiny car has working lights, indicators, a petrol gauge and even a tax disc to prove its legality to incredulous onlookers which was bought by his wife and two sons.
Transcript
00:00This is one car that will turn heads on the road, as it looks to be more at home in a
00:08fairground.
00:0969-year-old Tom Evans, from Glasgow, used to run a fun fair, before handing the reins
00:15of the business over to his son.
00:17But when he spotted a dodgem car on an auction site, he couldn't resist a memento.
00:22The reason I wanted it was because it looks like a dodgem car, and that's what our family
00:28runs, dodgems, so I could not pass it up.
00:39It was advertising for sale and I thought, oh, very nice, you know, and we kept looking
00:43for a couple of days, then all of a sudden it went off and I thought, oh, someone must
00:47have bought it.
00:48In fact, Tom's wife had bought the dodgem car without him knowing and surprised him
00:53with his bumper gift for Christmas in 2013.
00:57The two boys and my wife went down to Northumberland and haggled with the man that had it, agreed
01:02the price and fetched it home. It was stored for about four months, five months before
01:06Christmas. Obviously, I didn't get it till Christmas.
01:11It's been neglected over the years and when we got it, couldn't use it on the road because
01:16it wasn't tested. I had a handbrake, but no footbrake and the lights didn't work and
01:20things like that, so we took it to a place in Glasgow and they went through it. They
01:23had it for months because trying to find the parts.
01:28The street-legal bumper car has all the necessary paperwork and fittings for the road. It can
01:33run up to 75 miles per hour, has indicator lights, a petrol gauge and turns heads wherever
01:39it goes, including the police.
01:43And we'd been on the road about five minutes and we got stopped by the police and they
01:46wanted to know, what the hell is it? And we had to take the documents down to the police
01:51station and they all came out of the police station to have a look and they thought, this
01:55is unbelievable.
02:00Very clever. What a great novel idea, eh? Have a dodgem on the high street.
02:06It's quite cool because the guns in here are not as usual as in normal cars.
02:12But this is one bumper car that Tom hopes won't be in a bus stop.
02:16You'll never see another one like it, I don't think. People see it and they do stop and
02:20think, what the hell is that? Because it is an eye-catcher.
02:24And it's a good one.

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