ARLINGTON, Va. -
It sounds like a car and moves like a car, but this thing used to fly.
It's a 1956 Cessna 310 put on a 1987 Toyota van chassis.
“I had animals living inside it. I had no tail section, had no engines,” said Jeff Bloch.
Bloch is a veteran police officer. He and a team of friends call themselves SpeedyCop and the Gang of Outlaws. At his house in Maryland, they built the "Spirit of LeMons."
“We worked on it all winter - in the cold and the dark and the rain and the snow,” he said.
It's been finished for about one week, but they are already getting lots of questions.
He raced it last weekend against 85 other cars. In fact, they won the grand prize at a race in South Carolina.
“It's an endurance road race series for basically Craigslist beater cars, so we got a Craigslist beater airplane instead,” Bloch said.
And while they were there, Bloch said, “A guy jumps out of a brand new Ferrari and he's running up to me with his hands up in the air [saying], ‘Oh, my God! This is the coolest car I've ever seen in my entire life! My entire life!’ He got out of a brand new Ferrari to tell me that. I said, 'OK, I'll trade you.'”
Now, except for the five-point harness, when you're sitting in there, it sort of feels like you're in your car. It's got the Toyota steering wheel and the Toyota gear shift. But when you start moving, it's way more fun.
It's 27 feet long. And it goes 90 miles per hour on the straightaways.
Kids love it and grownups too.
“They pull in wherever I'm at and jump out [asking], ‘Can we take pictures?' And I tell them, ‘Go ahead and sit in it’ and they freak out,” said Bloch.
So what's next for this vehicle?
“Headlights, turn signals, and take it to the state police for inspection and tag it as a street rod,” he said.
