Cosmotron Car - Designer Builds Sci-Fi Vehicle In His Backyard
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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00:0001. Cosmatron
00:05This purple vehicle may look like a spaceship from a sci-fi film, but it's actually a one-of-a-kind
00:10custom car, the Cosmatron.
00:1302. Paul Bacon
00:14The whole car is perfect and the more I drive it I realise that the car is perfect.
00:1903. Paul Bacon
00:20This kind of car has never been seen in this country before.
00:24The space age car was designed by Paul Bacon, who spent 18 months building the car, in a
00:29shed in his back garden.
00:31Paul Bacon Once the project started I always liked to
00:33keep it moving and never let it stand still. If you do just a little bit every day it will
00:38always get done. In the 60s in America there was a few cars like this but not too many
00:44and when I was a kid I was always told that by the year 2000 this is what cars would look
00:50like 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 fibreglass body and onto that I bonded polystyrene and expanding
01:25foam. Then I sculpted the shape of the car. I used a piece of 10mm steel rod and ran it
01:32from here down to here and that gave me the basic lines of the car. Once I got it to the
01:38shape I wanted it in polystyrene I covered that in fibreglass and then smoothed it all
01:43out to the car that you have now.
01:45I also made the tooling for the dome. The dome ring is made of steel. I made the tool
01:50for the dome and sent it to a place called Dupless Domes, it used to be in Leicester
01:55and they pumped up the dome. The dome sits on a steel ring that rises and falls on a
02:01hydraulic ram and hinge system. The dome itself is made of the same sort of acrylic plastic
02:08used 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 fifties people would modify cars with anything that was around and this kind of
02:42grille became popular using a drawer pull off of old Chester drawers. Those drawer pulls
02:48are very hard to get now so almost looking the same. These are actually lids off of a
02:52lot of tubes of moisturiser which I found in a charity shop for about five pounds and
02:58then cleaned up and they're now on there. These are plastic and they won't go rusted.
03:03Paul and his wife Kirsty took the Cosmotron to car shows around Europe but after two years
03:08they were ready to move on to a brand new project. I sold it in order to build another
03:13car because for me the building of the car is better than the final owning of the car.
03:18Paul's always doing projects, crazy projects. He's not happy unless he's making something.
03:22He's on to his next car project now and Cosmotron is actually his second car. Luckily for Paul,
03:28car enthusiast Martin Smith had been coveting Cosmo for two years. I decided to buy the
03:33car because for years I wanted a different sort of car. What I like about the car so
03:37much is the way it looks, the space age look of it, the craziness of it, the actual bubble
03:43top, the colour, the whole way the car's built. The 60s crazy look is what I really go for.
03:51And Martin had fallen in love with the bizarre motor. I've done about 800 mile in it and
03:55it's been brilliant. It's like being in a goldfish bowl looking out on the world. Luckily
04:03Martin's wife Kathy shares his enthusiasm. We're a bit crazy in our family. We give him
04:08all names so he's Cosmo to us but I do love him. He's a lovely car. Drives so nice. People's
04:16reaction to the car, when you drive it down the road, everyone stops, everyone stares,
04:21everyone wants to take a picture. I think just general amazement. It's very, very, very
04:26eye-catching. Unique as well I find. I pull up into a petrol garage, people come up to
04:32me, what sort of car is this? Is it a kit car? Who makes it? Is it a production line
04:36car? They don't understand how it works. If I took it down to the pub, my mates would
04:39love that. There would be photographs taken, it would be in the papers, it would be splashed
04:44everywhere. And now Martin has the Cosmotron for himself. He has no intention of letting
04:49it go. It's probably the first bubble top car that's ever been made in England. I think
04:54it needs to stay in England. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never
04:58sell it.
05:02I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my
05:04best to keep it in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep it
05:05in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never
05:06sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it. So I'm going
05:07to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep
05:08it in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and
05:09never sell it. So I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it. So
05:10I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it. So I'm going to try my