To continue the automotive theme . . .

. . . of the previous post (see below), we have a report of a British enthusiast who's built a street-legal car - out of a coffin!

A former gravedigger has built a 100mph single-seater car using a 7ft-long steel coffin for the body.

Phil Bissett, 62, bought the unusual handmade coffin for £98 [about US $145] on internet auction site eBay and has dubbed his new creation 'Holy Smoke'.

The tattoo artist from Harold Hill, near Romford in Essex, normally customises hearses in his spare time.

Mr Bissett said the head-turning car has almost sent a couple of people to an early grave.

'The first time I took it out one bloke nearly fell off the kerb and into the gutter when he saw it,' he said. 'Another was madly trying to take pictures from his Hummer and almost crashed into the back another car.




'It looks like something the Adams family would drive. People react funnily to this, my wife won't go near it.'

The coffin originally cost £1,500 [about US $2,220] and had been imported from Mexico when Mr Bissett spotted it online.

. . .

'It was padded inside and I've left the handles on it so people can see it's a coffin. It's even got what they call a time capsule inside to identify the body.'

Mr Bissett transformed the 75kg [165 pound] steel coffin into a fully taxed and roadworthy car by using the engine of his daughter's 1972 VW and parts from a dumper truck, a beach buggy and an old Ford car and even wheel spinners made out of grave vases.

The number-plate of the bone shaker is DIGG in honour of Mr Bissett's former occupation.

The casket has been spray painted with the words Holy Smoke drifting across a graveyard scene and the words Rust in Peace across the lid.

Along the sides Mr Bissett had painted 'I put the fun in funerals' and 'I see dead people' and on the petrol tank it says 'Embalming fluid only'.

There's more at the link.

I can't blame Mr. Bissett's wife . . . I'm not sure I'd ride in it either! It could be classified as 'tempting fate', to put it mildly!

Peter