• yesterday
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
00:00001 COMM COMM
00:04This is one car that will turn heads on the road, as it looks to be more at home in a
00:09fairground.
00:1069 year old Tom Evans from Glasgow used to run a Fun Fair before handing the reins of
00:15the business over to his son.
00:18But when he spotted a Dodgem car on an auction site, he couldn't resist a memento.
00:23002 TOM EVANS
00:24The reason I wanted it, it looks like a Dodgem car, and that's what our family runs, Dodgems.
00:29so I could not pass it up.
00:39It was advertising for sale and I thought, oh, very nice, you know,
00:43and we kept looking for a couple of days, then all of a sudden it went off
00:46and I thought, oh, somebody must have bought it.
00:48In fact, Tom's wife had bought the Dodgem car without him knowing
00:52and surprised him with his bumper gift for Christmas in 2013.
00:57The two boys and my wife went down to Northumberland
01:00and haggled with the man that had it, agreed the price and fetched it home.
01:04It was stored for about four months, five months before Christmas.
01:07Obviously, I didn't get it till Christmas.
01:12It's been neglected over the years and when we got it,
01:15couldn't use it on the road because it wasn't tested.
01:17I had a handbrake but no footbrake and the lights didn't work and things like that,
01:21so we took it into a place in Glasgow and they went through it,
01:24but they had it for months because they were trying to find the parts.
01:28The street-legal bumper car has all the necessary paperwork and fittings for the road.
01:33It can run up to 75mph, has indicator lights, a petrol gauge
01:39and turns heads wherever it goes, including the police.
01:43We'd been on the road about five minutes and we got stopped by the police
01:46and they wanted to know what the hell is it.
01:49We had to take the documents down to the police station
01:52and they all came out of the police station to have a look and they thought,
01:56this is unbelievable.
02:01Very 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.
02:19People see it and they do stop and think, what the hell is that?
02:22Because it is an eye-catcher.
02:25It's a good one.

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