"God wants, man dreams, the work is born." A quote from Fernando Pessoa's “Message” that seems to fit perfectly into the story of Kelvin Odartey, an 18-year-old from Ghana, who decided to turn his dream of building a car into reality.
A dream that certainly all of us who love these rolling machines have already had. How many of us have done something for this? Well, this young man did, overcoming all the difficulties and challenges, as we can see in the youtuber Drew Binsky's video.
More impressive is his story when we learn that it took him three years to build his own car, that is, his quest started when he was just 15 years old.
To turn his dream into reality, Kelvin Odartey had to resort to what he had at hand, namely, scrap metal. He used everything from metallic tubes to iron bars for the skeleton of his creation, and the steel from which cargo containers are made for the body panels. Yes, his machine doesn't look the most polished, but given the context, the fact that it's a functional car is quite impressive.
The engine came from a motorcycle and it was also in the world of two wheels that he searched for various components, including those that are part of the suspension. Inside we can see that there is an instrument panel and there is no lack of an audio system.
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The cost of making your own car from scrap metal? Kelvin advances with a value of 8000 Ghanaian cedi, the equivalent of just over 1100 euros (the conversion we see in the video is not correct).
Kelvin's car ended up going “viral” on the internet and turned the 18-year-old into a celebrity. He caught the attention of Kwadwo Safo Junior, the executive director of Kantanka, an automobile manufacturer in Ghana, who welcomed the young man and took on the role of his mentor. And it gave him the opportunity to continue to evolve his own car. The end result was this:
How it started and how it ended. Ghana’s indigenous car manufacturing firm, Kantanka Automobile has successfully remodeled the car developed by Junior High School (JHS) graduate, Kelvin Odartey.
Congratulations to both Kelvin and Kantanka. pic.twitter.com/ZUBQTtixe5— Sikaaa. (@Sikaofficial1) December 27, 2020