Cars are made out of all sorts of stuff. Morgan has its wooden frames and McLaren decks out some of its cars in pure carbon fiber. But what about other materials? For one Russian man, he figured he could build one out of ice.
Hailing from the city of Novosibirsk, Vladislav Barashenkov needed something to do during the long, cold Siberian winters. To help pass the time he teamed up with a local ice sculptor to create a vehicle made out of ice. But which would work best for the frozen transformation?
After looking at several cars and trucks, he ultimately decided on the Mercedes-Benz G-Class. This box on wheels lends itself well to literal blocks of ice, after all.
Handily, the G-Class does ride on a body-on-frame construction too. However, we’d guess using its frame was cost prohibitive. Instead, Barashenkov opted for a UAZ 469.
If you’ve ever played Spintires you probably know the UAZ 469. Sporting the name A-469, this little off-road vehicle acts as your scout vehicle.
Once he secured the donor frame, Barashenkov got to work.
First, he added an aluminum frame in the rough shape he wanted. Then he got to work casting large blocks of ice. Once the building blocks were complete, the ice sculptor worked to form and fit the blocks around the frame.
From there it worked like a big Lego set with simply “snapping” the blocks together. To make sure that nothing would fall off, they used water injected via a syringe in between the blocks to “glue” them together.
The end result doesn’t really look like a G-Class, but for something made out of ice, it’s a decent attempt.
To help give it a bit more pop Barashenkov even fitted several multicolor LED light throughout. This allows the ice-UV to change into a multitude of colors.
Surprisingly the Eiswagen is drivable, although due to the weight of the frosty stuff the suspension does droop quite a bit. We’re betting it won’t win many drag races either.
Oh, and we wouldn’t want to do any off-roading with it. Even though ice is fairly strong, the frame doesn’t look very sturdy. If you’ve ever popped ice cubes out of a tray, you can probably assume what would happen over a rough road.
Weirdly, Barashenkov isn’t the first to try this either. Back in 2013, Canadian Tire did something similar but with a heavy duty GM truck.
While ice trucks probably won’t catch on, they are pretty cool — literally.
You can check out the video detailing Barashenkov’s ice truck below from his YouTube channel Garage 54. Also, if you’re interested in the Canadian Tire attempt, you’ll find that video as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrFRaviVyQU
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