Skip to main content

Wall proves no barrier

A car enthusiast in the US state of Wisconsin built his own Lamborghini but had to hire an excavator and demolish a wall to remove the simulacrum supercar from his basement. The man was so inspired after seeing the B-movie Cannonball Run about an illegal car race held on public roads across the US that he decided to build his own Lamborghini. The film starred Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan, Peter Fonda and Roger Moore, at least some of whom can be assumed to have
July 6, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A car enthusiast in the US state of Wisconsin built his own 3066 Lamborghini but had to hire an excavator and demolish a wall to remove the simulacrum supercar from his basement. The man was so inspired after seeing the B-movie Cannonball Run about an illegal car race held on public roads across the US that he decided to build his own Lamborghini. The film starred Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, Farrah Fawcett, Jackie Chan, Peter Fonda and Roger Moore, at least some of whom can be assumed to have been in need of the money at the time. In the film two women compete in the race, driving a black Lamborghini Countach, which fuelled the man's burning desire to construct a replica car. Building his own Lamborghini took the man 17 years but digging out a slope, knocking down the wall, hauling the car out, rebuilding the wall and filling in the hole was accomplished in a matter of a few hours. The man is not the first to have had to demolish a wall after building a vehicle however and perhaps the most famous person to have done so was Henry Ford, founder of the 3423 Ford car motor company. Ford assembled his first car in a coal shed but it was too wide to fit through the door and he had to chop down a wall to get it out. It is worth noting that the Lamborghini firm had its first successes making agricultural tractors but when its founder complained about the 5489 Ferrari he had just bought, to Enzo Ferrari no less, he was told in no uncertain terms to return to his tractors. In response, Lamborghini then developed the now famous rival performance car brand, although the business was later sold and the Lamborghini family continued making tractors.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Hitting back
    February 15, 2013
    A six-strong gang of car thieves got rather more than they bargained for when they tried to steal an expensive Range Rover from two brothers in the UK city of Birmingham late one night. The owner of the car just happened to be a famous boxer and when one of the thieves slapped him, the boxer punched his assailant back and knocked him out cold. The boxer and his brother, also a successful boxer, then fought back the rest of the would-be carjackers.
  • Parking problems
    March 21, 2012
    An Italian woman ended up parking her car on the roof of a house when she accidentally forgot to use its handbrake. The woman had stopped to photograph a scenic view but as she stood to one side and adjusted the settings on her camera, the car rolled from the road, through a barrier, down a hillside and onto a house below.
  • Promoting advances in sustainable roads worldwide
    April 12, 2012
    Professor Martin Snaith, O.B.E., introduces an annual gathering that has grown over the years to become perhaps the world's foremost professional development forum promoting advances in sustainable roads worldwide. Over more than 15 years the Senior Road Executives Programme (SRE), organised by the internationally renowned Highways Group of the University of Birmingham, UK, in association with IRF, has established a worldwide reputation for providing top-quality professional development for executives worki
  • Construction sector's quiet revolution for digital worksites
    February 8, 2017
    The digital worksite topped the agenda at this year’s CECE congress. David Arminas reports from the Czech capital Prague* Europe’s equipment manufacturers and their clients are truly in an age of transformation driven by an increasing move towards the digital worksite. Because this transformation is so deep, there looms big challenges for the entire sector and its supply chain, noted Bernd Holz, president of the CECE – Committee for European Construction Equipment, Europe’s umbrella organisation for