Rakesh Babu, from the Indian town of Cherthala, has never once seen a real Volkswagen Beetle in his life – but he loved it on the pictures, so he jury-rigged his own copy.
He started off with a custom stainless-steel framework, sourced the wheels from a motorized rickshaw and the engine from a Suzuki Samurai. He then implemented his own ignition, transmission and RWD, and topped it all with a body design loosely based on the Beetle photos he had seen.
The homemade compact car consumers 3.4 liters of gas per 100 km/h (UK: 83 MPG; USA: 69 MPG). It cannot go beyond 40 km/h (25 mph) and is therefore not street-legal in India, but Rakesh seems okay with that and says he wouldn’t mind bringing his creation to an auto show someday.