Meet “Splinter” The 700bhp Supercar Made from Wood!
Peter Donnell / 9 years ago
A little bit off track today with tech news, as something really caught my eye, a wooden car. No, not the type you see at soapbox races, or the kind you built as a kid. This is a fully featured, incredibly powerful super car, the kind you would expect to see from the likes of Lamborghini or Ferrari.
The Splinter Hand-Mode Wooden Car is build from as much wood as physically possible. It features a wooden body, wood interior, it even features wood spokes on the alloys! The body has been created from a wood weave that’s quite possibly the most eco version of carbon fiber ever! Each wheel is made from 10 laminated wooden spokes, with a rotary-cut oak veneer and an aluminium rim. Don’t be fooled though, this is no chiselled lump, as it’s made with woven cherry veneer, which was combined using vacuum pressure and fancy epoxy, creating incredibly strong and lightweight body panels that any super car would be proud to wear.
“Wood-spoke wheels have not been used on production cars in nearly 90 years, so we knew the idea would get a lot of attention.” said the cars builder, Joe Harmon.
The car weights 2500 pounds, but shouldn’t have to much trouble getting going, as it is sporting a 4.6L, 700hp V8 engine. It’s a nice way of showing that with all the research going into space-age technologies, there’s still a lot of cool stuff to be done with more natural resources around us.
Why did Harmon build the car? As a business card. He wants a job and he’s using this car as an example of his work. I think it’s got a good chance of working in his favour, don’t you?