Flintstones Mobile
I can't believe how many things I've let Merlin talk me into doing. I think I'm too easy-going. Oh well, I like it. But seriously, this was a very good and fun project - I'm glad we did it.

I don't remember how exactly we came up with the idea or who for that matter, basically Merlin and I lived in my garage for a straight week non-stop building this damn thing and didn't really stop much to eat or drink. I'm surprised we're still alive. I think during the last half of the week our friend Digits came by to help too. We pretty much got to work on this thing right after we got off work late at night from Harkins.

When all was said and done, we loaded the Flintstones Mobile in the back of Merlin's truck and drove over to a local Jack in the Box with some friends and had a dummy car order something at the drive through while we followed behind them and picked it up. We were known at that Jack in the Box as the "Flintstones Guys" for a long time after that.


Materials
2x4 (12ft) planks~donated~
4ft x 6ft (1/2in) plywood~donated~
3" (10ft) PVC pipe(donated or found - I can't remember)
a bunch of nails
(like they build houses with)		~donated~
some wood screws(how the hell should I know?!)
BIG sheets of cardboard~donated~
1" (?ft) PVC pipefound lying around
old white sheet(also lying around)
duct tape?!it was there..
shalak (sp?)he had some extra
flat nylon rope(i guess it was lying around..)
o-ring clampswe had some somewhere
brown/white paintmaybe <$10
totalWAY fricking cheap!

Construction
  1. First we cut some 2ft (?) circles out of the plywood to use as the basis of the wheels. A hole was then cut in the center of each circle to allow the axel to fit snuggly into each circle (although maybe we should've made it fit loosely into the wheels and be snug to the frame..)
  2. Some 1-2ft planks were cut from the 2x4's to put a gap in between each circle to produce the width of the wheels. These were, I think, nailed together and maybe screwed later on when we decided the nails sucked ass. The 3" PVC axels were then inserted into the wheels
  3. We finished up the wheels rather simplistically by wrapping them in big sheets of cardboard, nailing it down a full width at a time, until it was one big cylinder. The duct tape was only because some of the cardboard sheets weren't big enough and we had to seal cracks where the pieces met. The cardboard we used was already white but because of the duct tape and for uniformity we spray painted them white.
  4. I cut the sides out of the plywood, doubling them up on each side for support (4 total). These were painted brown to look like the log halves that are used for the sides of the actual cartoon car.
  5. We placed the side panels over the axels of the wheels, while securing the axels with o-ring clamps to prevent the wheels from sliding from side to side in between the side panels.
  6. More pieces were cut from the plywood for the seat bottoms and backs. I don't think we had time to build a working steering wheel, so we unfortunately nevered added one.
  7. Obviously, these seats can't support themselves so we cut some more 2x4's to use as supports under and behind them, securing the side panels onto these planks.
  8. These seats were painted over with some shalak that Merlin had around his house, this was just to make it look and feel more like rock seats (even though it was white).
  9. Finally, we attached some smaller PVC to the back for the top canopy and to the front for the dashboard (also covered in shalak). The top canopy consisted of PVC pipes at maybe a 45-60 degree angle (because the back poles angled towards the back) tied with the flat nylon rope. The sheet was ripped around the edges and a hole was cut in the center of the back and then tied to the PVC poles.
  10. (the steering lever didn't work so I won't go into detail on how that was done)
Photos