00:04This purple vehicle may look like a spaceship from a sci-fi film, but it's actually a one
00:10of a kind custom car, the Cosmotron.
00:14The whole car is perfect and the more I drive it I realise that the car is perfect.
00:19This kind of car has never been seen in this country before.
00:23The space age car was designed by Paul Bacon, who spent 18 months building the car in a
00:29shed in his back garden.
00:31Once the project started I always like to keep it moving and never let it stand still.
00:36If you do just a little bit every day it will always get done.
00:39In the 60s in America there was a few cars like this but not too many and when I was
00:45a kid
00:46I was always told that by the year 2000 this is what cars would look like and they don't
00:51so incredibly disappointing.
00:53The 41 year old sat down and drew his dream car, then worked out how to make his dream
00:59a reality.
01:00I went and bought a BMW Z3 with the 2.8 litre straight six around about 1998 and I took
01:08every single body panel off it so I was left with just the rolling chassis and floor pan.
01:13I then braced that with extra steel just to make sure it was stiff enough so there'd be
01:18no flexing in the fibreglass body and onto that I bonded polystyrene and expanding foam.
01:26Then I sculpted the shape of the car, I used a piece of 10mm steel rod and ran it from
01:32here
01:33down to here and that gave me the basic lines of the car.
01:36Once I'd got it to the shape I wanted it in polystyrene I covered that in fibreglass and
01:42then smoothed it all out to the car that you have now.
01:45I also made the tooling for the dome, the dome rings made of steel, I made the tool for the
01:51dome and sent it to a place called Duplis Domes, it used to be in Leicester and they pumped
01:56up the dome.
01:57The dome sits on a steel ring that rises and falls on a hydraulic ram and hinge system.
02:03The dome itself is made of the same sort of acrylic plastic used in glider canopies.
02:10Paul stayed true to his design throughout, even if it meant using unconventional materials.
02:15We've got the 2.8 straight six, but modified, so it's running the six SU carbs, they're topped
02:23off with salt and pepper pots from John Lewis because they look like cool chrome bullets.
02:27And the interior, we've got the crazy gear shift, got the one off dashboard, one off steering wheel,
02:34my wife actually stitched all the interior.
02:37The rear grille here, during the 50s people would modify cars with anything that was around
02:42and this kind of grille became popular using a drawer pull off of an old chest of drawers.
02:47Those drawer pulls are very hard to get now, so almost looking the same. These are actually
02:51lids off of a lot of tubes of moisturiser, which I found in a charity shop for about £5
02:57and then cleaned up and they are now on there. These are plastic and they won't go rustic.
03:02Paul and his wife Kirsty took the Cosmetron to car shows around Europe, but after two years
03:08they were ready to move on to a brand new project.
03:10I sold it in order to build another car, because for me the building of the car is better than
03:16the final owning of the car.
03:18Paul's always doing projects, crazy projects, he's not happy unless he's making something.
03:23He's on to his next car project now and Cosmetron's actually his second car.
03:26Luckily for Paul, car enthusiast Martin Smith had been coveting Cosmo for two years.
03:32I decided to buy the car because for years I wanted a different sort of car. What I like
03:36about the car so much is the way it looks, the space age look of it, the craziness of
03:42it, the actual bubble top, the colour. The whole way the car is built, the 60s crazy look
03:48is what I really go for.
03:50And Martin had fallen in love with the Bazaar motor.
03:54I've done about 800 miles in it and it's been brilliant. It's like being in a goldfish
03:59bowl looking out on the world.
04:02Luckily Martin's wife Cathy shares his enthusiasm.
04:06We're a bit crazy in our family. We give them all names so he's Cosmo to us but I do
04:11love him.
04:12He's a lovely car. Drive so nice.
04:16People's reaction to the car, when you drive it down the road, everyone stops, everyone stares,
04:21everyone wants to take a picture. I think just general amazement.
04:24It's very, very, very eye-catching, unique as well I find.
04:29I pull up into a petrol garage. People come up to me, what sort of car is this? Is it
04:34a kit car?
04:34Who makes it? Is it a production line car? They don't understand how it works.
04:38If I took it down to the pub, my mates would love that. There would be photographs taken,
04:42it would be in the papers. I mean, it would be splashed everywhere.
04:45And now Martin has the Cosmotron for himself. He has no intention of letting it go.
04:50It's probably the first bubble top car that's ever been made in England. I think it needs to stay in
04:55England.
04:56You know, so I'm going to try my best to keep it in England and never sell it.
04:59It's probably the first bubble.
05:02It's probably the first bubble.
05:02It's probably the first bubble.
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