Friday, March 25, 2011

Fwd: Homeless man builds his own car out of junk

Guy has some gumption there. Amazing what you do when you have the will to do it and just get going on it. Can we bring him here as an example?

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Homeless man builds his own car out of junk
Date:	Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:30:15 -0400
From:	Jalopnik <email@jalopnik.com>
Reply-To:	Jalopnik <email@jalopnik.com>
To:	<rhomp2002@earthlink.net>

Jalopnik loves cars. Secret cars, concept cars, flying cars, vintage cars, tricked-out cars, red cars, black cars, blonde cars -- sometimes, cars just because of the curve of a hood.

By Justin Hyde

Homeless man builds his own car out of junk

This is Orismar de Souza, a homeless man in Brazil, who decided to build the car he couldn't buy using junk, spare parts and a hammer and chisel. Four years later, the "shrimpmobile" has him back on his feet.

Souza, 35, had to panhandle in the Brazilian city of São José de Piranha and go hungry for four months in order to raise the initial $270 he needed for sheet metal, which he cut into shape using a borrowed hammer and chisel. He scrounged a 125cc motorcycle engine, and gathered other junked parts from all over the region.

Homeless man builds his own car out of junk While Souza had decorated and traded metal cans as a child in exchange for food and clothes, he had no other experience in working with metal, and almost gave up when the steelwork became too difficult.

"Nobody believed, everybody laughed at me," Souza told Globo.com. "I was very humbled by this, but I won and I built my car alone with my own hands. "

Homeless man builds his own car out of junk By December, Souza was able to replace the motorcycle engine's kickstarter with a car ignition, and add in a gearbox with reverse. The mostly Fiat shrimpmobile can reach 50 mph on the highway, and Souza has been able to use it to find a home and a job in the local sugarcane fields.