Search

    Select Website Language

    GDPR Compliance

    We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

    He Broke Down In The Sahara. Built A Motorcycle Out Of His Car. Got Fined!

    8 hours ago

    6

    0

    👍 ❤️ 😂 😮 😢 😡

    He Broke Down In The Sahara. So He Built A Motorcycle Out Of His Car. Émile Leray turned a wrecked Citroën 2CV into a functioning two-wheeler using a hacksaw and hand tools. Twelve days later, he rode it to safety. Then the police fined him €450 for driving an unregistered vehicle. In March 1993, 43-year-old French electrician Émile Leray set out from Tan-Tan, Morocco, driving his Citroën 2CV approximately 400 miles northeast across the Western Sahara toward Zagora. He carried ten days of supplies and a loaded toolbox, according to Wikipedia and reporting from Hagerty. The Western Sahara was dangerous in 1993. A fragile ceasefire between the Moroccan government and the separatist Sahrawi Polisario Front meant military checkpoints scattered across the desert. A few miles into his journey, Leray hit one at a village called Tilemsen. "The military stopped me," Leray told Great Big Story in a video interview. "The military demanded that I stop at this road and return to Tan-Tan. I didn't do that—I pretended to return towards Tan-Tan." He drove a few kilometers back, then veered off-road to bypass the checkpoint and cut through the desert. The 2CV's legendary long-travel suspension handled rough terrain well initially. Then concentration lapsed. The car slammed into a rock. "I hit a rock and I destroyed the front axle and destroyed the chassis," Leray said. The front wheel buckled. The suspension arm folded in half. The car wasn't moving. Leray sat roughly 20 miles from the nearest town with limited food and water in one of the hottest, most unforgiving environments on Earth. Walking back seemed obvious. Instead, he decided to engineer an escape. Twelve Days With A Hacksaw During his first night under the desert sky, Leray worked out blueprints in his head. The engine and transmission still functioned. Three wheels remained usable, though he'd only need two. With the tools he had—primarily a hacksaw and basic hand tools—he could disassemble the 2CV, cut down the chassis, and rebuild it as a motorcycle. He started by removing the car's body and using it as shelter from brutal daytime heat. Then he shortened the frame with a hacksaw, reattached axles and two wheels, repositioned the engine and gearbox into the middle of the shortened chassis, and rigged the transmission to work in reverse so the bike would move forward. The seat came from the rear bumper, padded with orange duct tape. Handlebars were improvised. The ignition got an on/off switch. The battery was repositioned. The license plate from the Citroën hung on the back. It took twelve days and eleven nights, according to the Midwest Dream Car Collection, which now displays the actual motorcycle Leray built. By the end, he had less than a pint of water remaining. The contraption worked. Sort of. Leray had to learn to ride it, repeatedly falling off as he struggled with balance on a machine cobbled together from car parts never designed to function as a two-wheeler. The Police Were Not Impressed Leray eventually made it back toward Tan-Tan, where he encountered Moroccan military personnel in a 4x4. They didn't believe his story. The soldiers drove him back to find the remains of the Citroën to verify his account. With the story confirmed, they told him to ride his contraption back to Tan-Tan while they followed. Progress was slow. Leray kept falling off. Eventually, another 4x4 was called to haul the battered bike into town. Rather than praise for his engineering and survival, Leray received a fine of 4,550 dirhams—approximately €450 or $500—because the vehicle no longer conformed to the Citroën 2CV registration documents he'd presented when entering Morocco weeks earlier. "They issued me with a fairly hefty fine because they felt that the registration documents for the 2CV no longer corresponded to the bike," Leray told The Times, per Footman James coverage. "In their minds it was an offence. It was very expensive." Leray had to return to France without his life-saving machine. He came back a month later to retrieve it, driving another Citroën 2CV from France to Morocco to collect the motorcycle he'd built from the first one. The Skeptics Have Questions Not everyone accepts the story at face value. Sahara Overland, an overlanding site run by desert travel experts, raised pointed questions in 2017 after examining the evidence. "I believe the 2CV bike was indeed built in the desert, much as Leray claims, but he set out from France with the explicit intention of performing this task," author Chris Scott wrote. "Otherwise he'd have walked out like any normal person in a similar situation." Scott notes that Leray has a history of building eccentric machines from Citroën 2CVs, including a boat in Mali in 2006, a rugby ball, a table saw, and goggles made from seat rubber. Building unusual things from 2CVs is Leray's hobby. The distance—20 miles—could be walked in a day or two with the supplies Leray carried. Yet he spent twelve days building a motorcycle. The claimed unease about leaving his car behind doesn't ring true for someone stranded in a survival situation where walking offered the obvious escape. Television show MythBusters tested whether Leray's feat was even possible in their final series. Hosts attempted to replicate the motorcycle twice using a disassembled 2CV and failed both times, unable to create a rideable machine, per History Garage coverage. That said, MythBusters working in controlled conditions with all the time and resources they needed still failed. Leray succeeded in the desert with a hacksaw. The motorcycle exists. It runs. The Midwest Dream Car Collection displays it in Manhattan, Kansas. Whether it was survival necessity or elaborate performance art, the engineering is real. The MacGyver Award Goes To... Regardless of motivation, Leray accomplished something remarkable. He disassembled a car, cut the chassis with a hacksaw, repositioned an engine and transmission, created functional steering and controls, and rode the result across 20 miles of Saharan desert. The 2CV's simplicity made it possible. Minimal electronics. Mechanical simplicity. Parts designed to be removed and serviced with basic tools. A modern car with computerized engine management, electronic stability control, and integrated body structures couldn't be converted this way even if someone had the skills. Leray's machine has been exhibited worldwide since 1993. He still owns it. The motorcycle still runs, though videos show him demonstrating it rather than actually riding distances on it, which some skeptics note as suspicious. Whether it was a genuine survival story or a planned stunt executed under harsher conditions than intended doesn't change the core achievement. Leray turned a broken car into a working motorcycle using hand tools in the Sahara Desert. Then he rode it to civilization and got fined for his trouble. The fine is perhaps the most perfectly bureaucratic detail. Man engineers miraculous escape from certain death using improvised vehicle built from wreckage in one of Earth's harshest environments. Police: registration doesn't match, pay €450. Leray took it in stride. "It was very expensive," he told reporters years later. Expensive beats dead. The motorcycle that saved his life—or at least provided the story of a lifetime—sits in a Kansas museum where visitors can see exactly what a Citroën 2CV looks like when rebuilt as a two-wheeler by a determined Frenchman with a hacksaw and not much water left.   Whether you believe it was survival necessity or elaborate performance art, one thing remains certain: the police absolutely did fine him €450 for driving an unregistered vehicle. That part, at least, is completely believable.
    Click here to Read More
    • Share:
    The BBC Refused To Show F1's Greatest Season Because Of Condoms
    Previous Article
    The BBC Refused To Show F1's Greatest Season Because Of Condoms
    Next Article
    What Drivers Said After the Daytona 500 | 2026 NASCAR Cup Series
    What Drivers Said After the Daytona 500 | 2026 NASCAR Cup Series

    Related News Updates:

    Are you sure? You want to delete this comment..! Remove Cancel

    Comments (0)

      Leave a comment

      Send