A Big Banana Car Exists and It’s So Awesome Even Cops Give the Driver Money

This is a scenario that usually plays the other way around: the driver is pulled over by a cop for who knows what type of traffic offense and, when he’s handing over the driving license, he makes sure to slip a note with it. It could be 20 bucks or more, depending on the type of offense the driver thinks he got busted for.

This time, it played the other way around and it was the cop who handed the driver the free money. We know, there is no such thing as “free” anything, but there is in the this case. MLive says that Steve Braithwaite, one of the 2 drivers of the Big Banana Car, was at the receiving end of the unlikely gift.

Braithwaiter originally hails from the UK but is now a permanent resident of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He built the Big Banana Car off a 1993 Ford F-150 with help from the Mutant Brothers fabrication studio and he gives people rides in it (they can pay him whatever they see fit, as a sticker on it clearly reads) or he takes it to car parades or charity functions.

Braithwaite is now on an American tour, which he’s funding from donations. When he was pulled over just outside Kalamazoo, he had no idea the officer in charge of the traffic stop was about to make one as well.

“He checked my headlights and my indicators and when he asked for my license, I accidentally gave him my debit card and we both looked at each other and we had a good laugh,” Braithwaite tells the publication. “I think he might have thought I was trying to buy my way out of a ticket, but then realized it was just an accident.”

The cop checked to see if the car had any history of traffic violations and then returned the license – wrapped in a $20 bill. Braithwaite took it and went on his way, too shocked to even ask what the money was for. In the meantime, though, he came to understand that the cop must have seen the sticker that says he’s funding his trip across the U.S. from donations and paid rides.

At the bottom of the page is a video of the Big Banana Car in action. Other fun facts about it: its license plate is “SPLIT,” and it can reach speeds of up to 85 mhp, which is probably more but Braithwaite can’t tell because the speedometer doesn’t go any higher. It is also certified by the World Guinness Book of Records as the longest banana car in the world – but being the only one, it is also the shortest.