00:00I've wanted to design and build my own car for my whole life, and we thought
00:06building it out of material like wood would present an interesting challenge.
00:10The world's only wooden supercar.
00:23Just a ton of work, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into it. Obviously a lot of
00:28sandpaper as well.
00:31I'm Joe Harmon. I am the designer and builder of the world's only wooden supercar.
00:40I've wanted to design and build my own car for my whole life, and we thought building it
00:45out of material like wood would present an interesting challenge.
00:54This is our only naturally renewable, totally biodegradable building material. It has a
00:59better strength to weight ratio than steel and aluminum, and it's just a beautiful material.
01:04It's a lot of fun to work with.
01:05I think there are roughly 20 different species of wood in the car. We try to stick to North
01:13American hardwoods. From an engineering standpoint, we all consider to be interchangeable based
01:17on their density and strength. Walnut, cherry, maple, birch, hickory, ash. Most of the chassis
01:26is birch and maple. Wheels are walnut. The rest isn't mixed back. So interior wise, all
01:37wood steering wheel. There's no metal in that steering wheel anywhere whatsoever. It's nothing
01:41but wooden glue. A shaft that you see coming through the middle is the gear shift. The transmission's
01:48behind the engine in this car, and the shift linkage goes over the top of the engine. Wheels
01:54were a ton of work. They're the most complicated part. Wood's very strong, but it's also soft,
01:59so when you come to these hard points of metal, you need to be able to spread that load out
02:03over a larger area. The splinter was built over a nine-year period of time. When I was
02:14in graduate school, I was lucky enough to where my dad would pay for me to eat and go to school
02:18and live, so I didn't have any other responsibilities other than to work on this car. It's a ton of
02:23work. Pain, suffering, and sanding. As far as I can remember, the tires are the only completely
02:31off-the-shelf piece of this car. I knew it would be a ton of work. I get asked the how
02:36many hours did this take question a lot. I tell people 20,000 hours. It was very slow,
02:41very time-intensive process. Thinking how'd I get myself into all this. It ends up pulling
02:48everybody that's close to you into a project like this. I lived through the ten years of building
02:53it. That was quite an experience. It's still completely relevant today and looks totally
03:00different from anything else I've ever seen. It was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for sure.
03:06Mostly tears on my part.
03:07It has a seven-liter small block V8. We think it makes about 650 horsepower. It has a six-speed manual
03:17transmission, airbag suspension at all four corners so we can adjust the height. It's a very,
03:22very low vehicle and we have to get it on and off of trailers a lot, so being able to pick it up and
03:26down helps. It's hot, noisy, uncomfortable.
03:31You can't see out of the back of it. You can barely see out of the front of it.
03:38You're in a really, really low driving position. That's kind of part of what makes it raw and makes
03:44it exciting. It's not exactly the most practical vehicle in the world. It's not very good as a grocery
03:51getter.
04:00The fastest I've been in the vehicle is probably 30 miles an hour. I'm sure it has a top speed.
04:05I have no idea what it is. With the weight and the aerodynamics and the power that it makes,
04:12you know, maybe the engine can push this thing to 200 miles an hour. I don't know. I feel fairly
04:17certain that it will never happen, but it's probably theoretically possible.
04:22The car was really built as a building and engineering exercise to show people that you
04:26could do it. Heat is a concern. What'll happen is if this car gets too hot, it'll start letting go
04:33and the panels will get droopy and they'll fall apart. Every vehicle can catch on fire fairly easily.
04:39Just so happens with this one, there will be less left over at the end if it does catch on fire.
04:47When I look back on it, I think about all the good times I had. The coolest thing about the splinter
04:56for me was getting to go through this process and realize that I've got the absolute best friends
05:01and family that anybody could ever ask for. How many splinters did I actually get during the build? I lost
05:07this track. I got my fair share for a lifetime's worth.
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