Fatih Erdoğan, who is 43 years old and lives in the district of Alpu in Eskişehir, got inspired by his friends who were impressed by the vehicles in the Mad Max movie and expressed their desire to own one of those cars. Erdogan, influenced by his friends’ stories, got the idea of building a car. He started working on it and almost dedicated all his time to this project. Working tirelessly for 13 months, Erdogan built a 2-seater off-road vehicle with a 3.5-liter minibus engine and rear-wheel drive.
The vehicle, painted in purple and with all its parts handcrafted by Erdogan from the seats to the chassis, was tested on rough terrain. After spending approximately 900 thousand TL in total over 13 months, people who see Erdogan’s car do not believe it is handmade and ask where he bought it from. Erdogan, who only uses his car in traffic-free areas by towing it with a trailer, stated that he rejected offers to sell it to him. Rejecting an offer worth 2 million TL, Erdogan seems to be quite attached to his vehicle.
Detailing the process of building the car, Erdogan said, “We built this car inspired by a movie. My friends had tried to build it before, but they didn’t have enough experience, so they offered me, ‘Can you do it?’ I said I could do it in my spare time. The car was completed in a total of 13 months. Each part was shaped, corrected, and welded by hand. We even made the seats ourselves. We didn’t pay for anything, it was all handcrafted. We used a 3,500 motor. There are no power issues. We did it a bit for fun. We said, ‘Let’s make something different, let’s do something that doesn’t exist in Turkey.’ People are amazed when they see it. It cost around 800-900 thousand liras on average, because it was very demanding. We had to deal with this without looking at anything else for 13 months. There are occasional buyers. I can’t find the courage to do it again myself because it is a job that requires a lot of patience. If I sell it, I wonder if I can do it again.”
Erdogan, who said that the masters in the industry could not believe that he made it, continued, “All vehicles are generally referred to as off-road vehicles. You can use it in the mountains, hills, and such places. When you go to the city, there is a trailer, when you attach it to the trailer, there is no problem at all. I received a clear offer of 2 million TL. We had asked for 3 million with the car. We couldn’t agree, so we said, ‘Let it be, it’s not important.’ Of course, when a person wants, they can do anything. I think excuses are very unnecessary, making excuses seems meaningless. If you want, you can do it. If I can do it, anyone can. The masters naturally remain silent. They say, ‘There must be such a thing as plug-and-play, like lego,’ but I said, ‘There is no such thing, go and see.’ They look, just stay silent, they can’t say anything.”
