Whilst trying to avoid going down the ‘jumpers for goalposts’ route and displaying to the whole wide world that I am insanely jealous, I must say that all I had to play with when I was growing up was some Dinky toy cars and an Action Man or two (so to speak).
But times have changed – I mean, imagine how dull The Gadget Show would have been in the seventies. Children now have a mind-boggling array of toys and games to choose from and badger their parents for each Christmas.
This lucky chap though has his very own Santa who built for him an amazing toy that I only hope he will remember for the rest of his life. Grandad Alfie Dennet has built his 6-year old grandson, Alfie Wilde, a toy car that works like a real car, because it is a real car.
The dedicated grandad, who is a retired mechanic, spent around £5,000 converting an old banger into this rather marvellous Batmobile car. As regular readers will know, we like a Batmobile at Motor Vision and let’s face it, there are so many fascinating versions to write about. But I have never seen a child-friendly Batmobile before.
Mr Dennet says that he believes that with a few minor tweaks and adjustments, the car could actually be made road-worthy, although young Mr Wilde has about 11 years to wait yet for his first licence.
Alfie’s crime fighting car currently resides in North Wales at the home of his grandad where each weekend he can go visit and play the superhero.
It’s hard not to get caught up in a little bit of nostalgia when seeing this, I remember the excitement of getting an Action Man Jeep for Christmas as a small boy, followed the year after by the Action Man tank. Being about the same age as Alfie it was hard to appreciate the sacrifices made to just afford such luxury items in the seventies.
I later found out that it took my mum and dad plus 4 aunts all clubbing together to be able to afford my dream Christmas presents. Something that went unnoticed at the time, but is constantly appreciated now. In fact, I still have both the Jeep and the tank, I simply cannot get rid of them. And a year or so later, my excitement at thinking I had already received all my presents on Christmas morning only to go downstairs to see a bright orange ride-on tractor in the living room has yet to be surpassed.
So I guess I can kind of appreciate what young Alfie thought when he set eyes on this Batmobile for the first time. The car is actually a converted Daewoo Matiz, a car that arguably hasn’t inspired quite as much interest and fascination as this bespoke conversion. But I bet Alfie isn’t much interested in that, it’s a magic car after all.
Inevitably, in years to come, this young man will be asked what his first ever car was, it happens to us all every so often, at least his answer might raise a few more eyebrows than the stock expected reply. Enjoy your car Alfie!
Images from metro.co.uk
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