Photo: trademe.co.nz
As the saying goes, never be afraid to follow your dreams. Merv from New Zealand, the most enterprising man you’re likely to read about this week, is an example of that. A hilarious one, but an example nonetheless.
Since the November 2019 launch of the Cybertruck, we’ve seen more than a fair share of replicas, some better than others, but all of them capitalizing on the insane interest for Tesla’s upcoming all-electric truck. This one would have never even registered on the radar, had not Merv, the brains behind it, listed it for sale on TradeMe.
This is a 2000 Toyota Vitz (also known as Vittsu in Japan but better known to the rest of the world as the Yaris hatchback) Merv found in a junkyard. It had been written off, but Merv saw the potential in it and decided to breathe new life into the derelict Vitz by turning it into a Cybertruck replica, which he then listed for sale.
As the video at the bottom of the page shows (hat tip to InsideEVs), he was actually able to sell it at the end of last week for $999, which is probably about $900 more than it was worth. The video also makes it clear that Merv is a man of vision, though it’s doubtful whether he was in earnest about the whole thing. He says building the Cyber-Vitz took him three months of work, using sheets of aluminum he got from a local shop.
He also says he has other projects lined up, which translated into pressure to finish this one, so he could move on to the next. At the end of those three months, the result is a… thing that looks like child’s play. Misaligned, wonky, unstable and struggling from all respects, in addition to not being road-legal, this is as close to a Cybertruck (or any other actual car, for that matter) as the horse-drawn carriages of yore. No offense to the horse-drawn carriages.
In case you want to know what you missed out on, the Cyber-Vitz comes with seating for five, gull-wing doors (flappy delicate things that they are), “4WD with mean mud tires,” and 165,319 km (102,724 miles) on the odo. Not “a chick magnet,” Marv warned, but he did “make it better.”
This is a 2000 Toyota Vitz (also known as Vittsu in Japan but better known to the rest of the world as the Yaris hatchback) Merv found in a junkyard. It had been written off, but Merv saw the potential in it and decided to breathe new life into the derelict Vitz by turning it into a Cybertruck replica, which he then listed for sale.
As the video at the bottom of the page shows (hat tip to InsideEVs), he was actually able to sell it at the end of last week for $999, which is probably about $900 more than it was worth. The video also makes it clear that Merv is a man of vision, though it’s doubtful whether he was in earnest about the whole thing. He says building the Cyber-Vitz took him three months of work, using sheets of aluminum he got from a local shop.
He also says he has other projects lined up, which translated into pressure to finish this one, so he could move on to the next. At the end of those three months, the result is a… thing that looks like child’s play. Misaligned, wonky, unstable and struggling from all respects, in addition to not being road-legal, this is as close to a Cybertruck (or any other actual car, for that matter) as the horse-drawn carriages of yore. No offense to the horse-drawn carriages.
In case you want to know what you missed out on, the Cyber-Vitz comes with seating for five, gull-wing doors (flappy delicate things that they are), “4WD with mean mud tires,” and 165,319 km (102,724 miles) on the odo. Not “a chick magnet,” Marv warned, but he did “make it better.”
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