Vintage iron
Good ol’ American ingenuity, creativity, and know-how.
Arizona Mechanic Builds Own Fleet of Dwarf Cars Out of Old Fridges, Junkyard Scraps—Opens Own Museum
Master tinkerer Ernie Adams had always wanted a race car. But who has money for a race car?
Moreover, living in a little trailer park in Harvard, Nebraska, at the time he had no room to park one.
So, Adams, who has worked in a garage since age 16, satisfied his longing by building his very own antique dwarf car.
Over the years, his hobby would snowball massively. Now 82 and retired, Adams has an entire fleet comprised of some 15 antique dwarf cars—including several race cars—all made by his hand.
No stranger to tinkering in the shop, growing up, Adams lived just a quarter mile from the city dump, which fed his hobby. “That city dump was like a free department store for me,” he told The Epoch Times.
“At that time, they were taking gas washing machine motors off and putting electric on, and they’d throw the old motors in the dump.”
There were old bicycle and wagon parts, too, and he started deconstructing and reconstructing them and then selling his fully-functioning contraptions.
“I didn’t realize I was learning my trade back then,” he said, adding that his learning to build his own vehicles in those days came easy, because “time meant nothing, and there was no money involved.”
Lots of great pictures of this true American artist’s amazing work at the link, including this one.
You do NOT want to miss any of this one, folks, trust me on that. The interior pic of the 49 Merc—which features an old-school shrunken head dangling from the mirror stanchion, and a CD player in the dash—is worth the click all by itself. And then there’s this:
The mechanic’s dwarf cars can easily handle the highway, zooming at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, while traveling as far as 200 or 300 miles on a tank of gas. They run on Honda motors installed by Adams.
Sure, it’s cozy but not uncomfortable, as Adams drops the floors down low to provide legroom aplenty.
Plus, they’re street legal; Adams, now living in Maricopa, contacted Arizona authorities and had them registered as “homemade” vehicles—as one would register a homemade trailer.
Having participated in dozens upon dozens of antique car competitions across the state and beyond, Adams boasts a wall full of trophies.
What an incredible, all-American story. I hope Adams gets rich as Croesus off of this hobby of his, I really do.
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