BHATKAL:
| If we allow high school lads like Mohan Anand Naik of this coastal town of Bhatkal to find a way to mitigate the problem of the growing size of our automobile dump yards he will come up with a series of cars! Yes in a recent attempt to do so he has indeed created a car that can take two people and which is built completely out of material taken from junk including the engine. But please pardon the disheveled look of this car which he fondly calls ‘Expert car’.
He might have spent Rs. 8000 from his pocket money over a period of two months but today he has his own car. “It all started when I found an old 50 cc motorcycle engine lying there in my father’s workshop, it gave me an idea of first putting together a motorcycle but making a car was easier” Mohan tells with a grin. Then I rummaged through the backyard scrap material. I found out an old kiddy’s tricycle of which metal wheel became the steering wheel, an old pickle storage tank became the fuel tank and an odd set of anglers and GI pipes became the frame and the chassis. But still I had to find the transmission which I found in the town’s scrap dealers who offered it free to me after knowing about my dream car, he says.
Today after two months Mohan drives this car in his village called Talanda about 35 kilometers from Bhatkal and sometimes gives ride to his friends. “The ride is bumpy as I have not found the right set of shock absorbers to fit into the Chassis and the frame but the scrap dealer has told me he will find it for me and when they arrive I will have a smoother ride” says Mohan. “The shape is also nothing great, I need a windshield and bonnet hood that needs replacing, but money is not coming smoothly as once the car was put on the road my financier –my father has slowed down investing on it” Mohan also contacted his relatives who is a transport department official for a registration but the answer was in the negative. “rightly so, I did not expect a car made out of scrap material to get a registration” he understands. Anand Naik his father was also skeptical about his son’s intentions in the beginning, “I thought this boy was just squandering my money, but as the car took shape I was happy about his concept and hard work that he put in. He learnt drilling, welding and working on engine all by himself.” Mohan says that he wanted to do automobile engineering but that is a long way to go as he has just entered the tenth standard and needs to concentrate on doing well there to get into science stream.
source: http://themangalorean.com / by Rajat. R / Mangalore / May 18th, 2011 |
