A collection of wooden supercars
Despite having studied business administration at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, Dao opened a factory producing wooden souvenirs.
While taking his son to the park, Dao realized his son was very fond of driving toy electric cars. Dao then came up with the idea of a wooden car. Dao spent 3 months making the first Ferrari design based car without an engine. With the first model, he could only pull it back and forth manually.
Uploading the video of his first car on YouTube, he received support from many international friends and decided to make the second car a Bugatti Centidieci. With the experience of the first car, Dao did research and successfully built an electric car.
So far he has created a collection with a Lamborghini Sian, Bugatti Centidieci, BMW 328 Hommage, Chevrolet Corvette C8, Ford Mustang, Toyota Land Cruiser, Audi Q7, Range Rover, and Ford F-150 in wood with a value of hundreds of millions of dong.
The sequence of steps to make a car is from bottom to top. Dao starts making the undercarriage, then installs the engine and the wheels. The next step is carving little details on the car’s body.
Finally, to make the toys catch the eye, Dao installs lights and spray paints the cars. The types of wood used to make the cars is mainly ebony and cedar. Supercars made of wood are usually two-thirds the size of actual cars and can run for 3 hours.
“Although making cars is costly and time consuming, I do not intend to sell them. I plan to make a collection so that it can be an individual exhibition and auctioned for charity”, Dao said.
It takes several months to complete a car.
Story: Ngan Ha - Photos: Khanh Long - Translated by Nguyen Tuoi