The Costomtron, affectionately known as Cosmo, is a unique car designed to look like a 1960s bubble car. The Jetsons-style space age design was created by Paul Bacon, who spent 18-months building the car from a shed in his back garden. Bacon sat down and drew his dream car then worked out what materials he could use to make his dream a reality. He used the chassis of an old BMW Z3 as the base for his car and sculpted its unusual curves using polystyrene, foam and fiber-glass matting.
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00:00COMM 00001 00002 This purple vehicle may look like a spaceship
00:07from a sci-fi film, but it's actually a one of a kind custom car – the Cosmotron.
00:19COMM 00002 00004 The space age car was designed by Paul Bacon,
00:26who spent 18 months building the car, in a shed in his back garden.
00:31Once a project started I always liked to keep it moving and never let it stand still. If
00:36you do just a little bit every day it will always get done. In the 60s in America there
00:41was a few cars like this but not too many and when I was a kid I was always told that
00:47by the year 2000 this is what cars would look like and they don't so incredibly disappointing.
00:53The 41 year old sat down and drew his dream car then worked out how to make his dream
00:59a reality.
01:00I went and bought a BMW Z3 with the 2.8 litre straight six around about 1998 and I took
01:09every single body panel off it so I was left with just the rolling chassis and floor pan.
01:14I then braced that with extra steel just to make sure it was stiff enough so there would
01:18be no flexing in the fiberglass body and onto that I bonded polystyrene and expanding foam.
01:26Then I sculpted the shape of the car. I used a piece of 10mm steel rod and ran it from
01:32here down to here and that gave me the basic lines of the car. Once I got it to the shape
01:38I wanted it in polystyrene I covered that in fiberglass and then smoothed it all out
01:44to the car that you have now. I also made the tooling for the dome. The dome ring's
01:48made of steel. I made the tool for the dome and sent it to a place called Dupless Domes
01:53that used to be in Leicester and they pumped up the dome. The dome sits on a steel ring
01:59that rises and falls on a hydraulic ram and hinge system. The dome itself is made of the
02:06same sort of acrylic plastic used in glider canopies.
02:10Paul stayed true to his design throughout, even if it meant using unconventional materials.
02:16We've got the 2.8 straight six but modified so it's running the six SU carbs. They're
02:23topped off with salt and pepper pots from John Lewis because they look like cool chrome
02:26bullets. And the interior, we've got the crazy gear shift, we've got the one off dashboard,
02:32one off steering wheel. My wife actually stitched all the interior. The rear grille here, during
02:38the 50s, people would modify cars with anything that was around and this kind of grille became
02:43popular using a drawer pull off of old Chester drawers. Those drawer pulls are very hard
02:49to get now so almost looking the same. These are actually lids off of a lot of tubes of
02:53moisturiser which I found in a charity shop for about five pounds and then cleaned up
02:59and they're now on there. These are plastic and they won't go rusted.
03:03Paul and his wife Kirstie took the Cosmatron to car shows around Europe. But after two
03:08years they were ready to move on to a brand new project.
03:11I sold it in order to build another car because for me the building of the car is better than
03:16the final owning of the car. Paul's always doing projects, crazy projects. He's not happy
03:21unless he's making something. He's on to his next car project now and Cosmatron is actually
03:25his second car.
03:27Luckily for Paul, car enthusiast Martin Smith had been coveting Cosmo for two years.
03:32I decided to buy the car because for years I wanted a different sort of car. What I like
03:36about the car so much is the way it looks, the space age look of it, the craziness of
03:42it, the actual bubble top, the colour, the whole way the car is built. The 60s crazy
03:48look is what I really go for.
03:51And Martin had fallen in love with the bizarre motor.
03:53I've done about 800 mile in it and it's been brilliant. It's like being in a goldfish bowl
04:00looking out on the world.
04:02Luckily Martin's wife Cathy shares his enthusiasm.
04:06He's a bit crazy in our family. We give him all names so he's Cosmo to us but I do love
04:11him. He's a lovely car. Drives so nice.
04:16People's reaction to the car, when you drive it down the road, everyone stops, everyone
04:20stares, everyone wants to take a picture. I think just general amazement.
04:25It's very, very, very eye-catching. Unique as well I find.
04:29I pull up into a petrol garage, people come up to me, what sort of car is this? Is it
04:34a kit car? Who makes it? Is it a production line car? They don't understand how it works.
04:38If I took it down to the pub, my mates would love that. There would be photographs taken,
04:41it would be in the papers. I mean it would be splashed everywhere.
04:45And now Martin has the Cosmotron for himself. He has no intention of letting it go.
04:50It's probably the first bubble top car that's ever been made in England. I think it needs
04:54to stay in England. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it.