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  • 12 hours ago
QUIRKY car designer Mark Ray is flying high on America's roads - driving a converted light aeroplane. Mark was the brains behind the Plane Car, a fusion of a 2003 Cirrus SR22 and a Chevrolet Tracker - costing around $10,000. Mark, of Atlanta, Georgia, who owns a paper shredding company, was already turning heads in a homemade Boat Car, which made headlines. But his daughter Brianna, thought he was getting bored with it and encouraged him to start a new project. It took five months to build with Steve West of Flex-Fab, Mike Rivera of Rivera's Upholstery and Brandon Geddings of Controlled Motors.

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Motor
Transcript
00:00People look in the rearview mirror and they see an airplane and they start panicking.
00:13The plane car is the brainchild of 56 year old Atlanta resident Mark Ray, who has previously built a roadworthy boat car.
00:21My 17 year old daughter Brianna encouraged me to build something else because she said that I was kind of getting bored with the boat car.
00:28Which is still a very unusual vehicle, but I came up with the idea of building a plane car.
00:34The vehicle was constructed from a Chevrolet Tracker and a 2003 Cirrus SR22.
00:40The Cirrus was perfect for me. It was just perfect.
00:43And the aircraft, luckily enough, has a fiberglass body, which makes it a little bit lighter weight,
00:50but much more durable than your average aluminum aircraft.
00:58Despite having the vision for his project, Mark was happy to let others do the hard work.
01:05I'm not the type of individual that gets their hands real dirty and involved in ripping metal and cutting things and whatever.
01:13I'd rather come up with the idea, write the check and then have the vehicle when it's done.
01:19I went to a body shop and he took the entire body off. It was a coming collision where I live.
01:26Then I went to another shop, Flex Fab, also in my area. They fabricated the two together to make it one.
01:33The next challenge was to make his creation road legal.
01:36I put on side view mirrors, tail lights. It has headlights. It has a rear view mirror. It's got a tag light. It's got seat belts. And yes, it's past emissions.
01:49The tail used to come out another, I'd say 15 or 20 inches. I had to cut that back so that the vehicle would be able to be driven down the street without ripping into other cars along the road.
02:01And Mark carried out the finishing touches to the plane car himself.
02:05When I did get the vehicle finished, I painted it myself and I striped it and decaled it myself.
02:11This vehicle took me about five months to put together. It cost me a little under $10,000.
02:16Despite the vehicle's unique look, it still acts as a family runaround.
02:21I take my son to school in it and the school goes crazy. All the people just go nuts when I show up with that airplane.
02:28And I have a good time. We go out for dinner in it. We come outside and there's a full crowd of people.
02:34And I have to answer a ton of questions about the plane. But that's, you know, that's part of the game.
02:39You have an unusual vehicle. You got to answer a lot of questions. But I really do like it a lot.
02:44And I'm going to enjoy it and pass this one down to probably my son.
02:48But Mark could be persuaded to part with his unusual mode of transport.
02:52I've had a few people ask if it was for sale. I told them not right now.
02:56But if the right price was offered to me, I'd sell it. Maybe. Maybe. Money talks.
03:04I'll turn the camera down.
03:16Yes.
03:17We seem to be��.
03:21Woo-weeah.
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