A lot of people on the move ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, and most of us are going to use the simplest means possible, be they plane, train, bus or car.
But what if in this busy travel season we could travel in a vehicle right out of Richard Scarry’s Busytown?
There is, in fact, a car shaped like a banana!
It’s the work of a guy in Michigan named Steve Braithwaite.
Originally he wanted to make a giant peanut car, but that fell through.
And $25,000 later, he took the chassis of a 1993 Ford F-150 and put a 15-foot long banana-shaped body on top of it, complete with four seats and a license plate that reads, appropriately enough, “SPLIT.”
Braithwaite says it can keep up with highway traffic, though I can only imagine what 80 or 85 miles per hour feels like in a convertible shaped like fruit.
The Big Banana Car has been traveling the country for the last few years.
Braithwaite pays for the trips by selling banana car rides, and sometimes, t-shirts that say “I rode in the Big Banana Car.”
If you’re not where the car is, there’s a pretty good alternative: there is now a Matchbox-sized version available for sale.
Or, check out the brand new minibikes known as Volkspods.
They got their names because their frames are made of upcycled parts from old-school Volkswagen Beetles.
The site My Modern Met described them best as looking like “cyclops on wheels.”
Michigan trooper pulls over banana car, gives driver $20 (WTHR)
Designer Transforms Vintage Volkswagen Beetles into Adorable Minibikes (My Modern Met)