David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • creesto

    So the frame tubing also came from a car? They didn’t show that, I wonder if they primarily used struts?

    • winkybb

      No, the tubing was made from recycled car steel – that is, melted and reformed. All steel bikes likely have recycled car steel in them. The handlebar and stem were bike parts. Nothing about the rims, but the hubs certainly looked to be bike parts. The seat was covered with vinyl from a car seat, but it was still a bike seat underneath. The crank-set wasn’t mentioned.

      Overall a BIG stretch to say the bike was made “entirely out of scrap auto parts”. I rate this execution of the concept a fail. And misrepresented. A more challenging project would be to actually build one from recovered parts, modified only by cutting/welding/drilling/gluing etc. More of a junk-yard project.

      • David Pescovitz

        Fair enough. I updated my post. Thanks.

      • http://twitter.com/SciStarborne Peter Turpin

        Seconded. Perhaps “car themed” or “made with car parts”, but both are still rather misleading. A single lamp, a re-skin of the seat and one door handle aren’t much to brag about. All presentation, no content. Should go down a storm in hipster circles. ;P

        Was hoping to see wheel-hubs cut down to make bike rims, bearings re-used as hubs, strengthening struts from the roof used as frame, etc..

        • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

          Yeah, ‘creative agency’ LOLA Madrid prolly deserves our scorn for trying this on, I’m thinking.

          Who the hell wants a car themed bike anyway? That’s just nasty and stupid.

          I’m as much a rev-head as any cyclist alive, but aside from the fact they both roll on round bits of rubber, it’s chalk and cheese, and never the twain except by the aesthetically handicapped.

          BTW, IIRC the only car company in recent memory to bother making a bike properly is Lotus… aside from Peugot of course.

  • drunkenpastor

    I skipped it when half way though it. My attention span is longer than a few quick peeks. I wanna’ see details. Slow it down. Take the time.

  • Thorzdad

    What cars have a “transmission belt”? There are timing belts, and accessory (serpentine) belts, none of which connect to the transmission. Is this a part some odd 2-cylinder product of the former Eastern Bloc used?

    • $19428857

      Some types of Continously Variable Transmissions (CVT) use belts, and are common in small cars in Europe(and increasingly so here in the US). A CVT is a type of  transmission that has an infinite number of stepless gear ratios between the lowest and highest RPM. JATCO, which is a Toyota subsidiary, currently makes them for lots of car companies. The Dutch car maker DAF (bought out by Volvo in the 1970s) pioneered the use of CVTs in automobiles. They often sound weird, like a slipping automatic transmission, and have had durability problems with larger displacement engines

      • http://profiles.google.com/afbs1017 Aubrey Burleson-Sanford

         Even if it did have a CVT, the video showed them pulling it out of a car exactly where the timing belt of serpentine belt would be. It’s definitely a mistake.

      • Thorzdad

         I’m aware of CVTs, but I’m pretty sure the belts in CVTs are shorter and broader than the one they showed being pulled from the car. It looked more like the serpentine or timing belt I mentioned. The one they used on the bike looked wider than the one pulled from the car, but seemed to be longer than a CVT belt.

        It’s not a big deal. The gearhead in me would just like to have it better explained, that’s all.