The story here is actually pretty impressive, I stumbled onto it thanks to a post by a colleague over at Gearlog, who wrote:

A homeless man in Brazil took advantage of the discarded shells of these junkers and threw together a brand new car, built entirely from scrap. Starting with a 125cc motorcycle engine, Orismar de Souza was able to put together a working vehicle, capable of hitting 50mph on the highway and featuring such luxuries as a reverse gear and an actual car starter to replace the kickstarter of the 125cc engine. It also sports an in-dash stereo.

The car essentially cost de Souza about $300 for the metal plating and base components, and the rest of the parts he needed were from discarded vehicles of similar models. The car has been dubbed the “shrimpmobile,” and managed to help de Souza land both a job and a place to live, so thankfully he’s no longer homeless.

One of the nicely noted things about brazil is that the economy is very heavily built on biofuels, so fuel prices aren’t quite as bad as they are in North America – he could presumably get pretty far on a little fuel and a little money. Enough to hit a few jobs interviews, at the very least.

I have to say, it’s a really impressive stories of someone’s ingenuity really leading to something very special. Gives me hope for humanity.

[ Hand-Built Car Made Almost Entirely from Scavenged Parts ]