Indian's imagination puts everyday objects on the road

Kanyaboyina Sudhakar spent 11 days creating the cigarette car and then destroyed it to encourage people to give up smoking.

Think of the most bizarre shell for a car and the chances are that Indian designer Kanyaboyina Sudhakar has already built it. The 48-year-old managing director of a printing firm has an obsessive hobby in odd car creations, to the extent that he owns and runs the Wacky Cars Museum in the Indian city of Hyderabad. In all, Sudhakar has 28 creations under his belt, ranging from a full-sized snooker table car to a cigarette on wheels and a cricket bat car.

In short, he has a car for virtually every occasion, which is his main, rational explanation for why he keeps on designing and building them. "It started as a hobby when I was a child," he says. "No one in my family was interested in cars or creating things, so I'm not really sure where it came from. "The only explanation I have is that there was this mechanic who lived near us who liked designing and building different things. I used to watch him and I guess that was my inspiration for what I do now."

Sudhakar's first piece of handiwork was a bicycle, which he created as a 14-year-old, while his first four-wheel foray was a shoe car he created while a student in his twenties. "A lot of people ask why I do it, but it's because I love it," he explains. "There's a lot of woodwork and glasswork involved and that's something that I enjoy. "And it's a good way to mark an occasion. To tie in with the 2003 Cricket World Cup, I created a cricket ball-shaped car and, four years later at the next World Cup, a cricket bat-shaped car.

"For the 2006 World Cup, for football in Germany I did a soccer-shaped car and one year, for Valentine's Day, I created a Valentine's mug covered in flowers." The aforementioned snooker table car is powered by a 150cc engine and comes with headlights and a steering wheel underneath the bottom right pocket. But arguably more radical than his green-baize handiwork was the cigarette he spent 11 days creating before destroying it in front of a gathered audience to encourage people to give up smoking.

Each car costs in the region of Dh5,500 to create, and the time it takes to complete varies from a week to months. And he prides himself on the fact that 90 per cent of his creations are made using second-hand materials from dumps near the printing press he runs. The cars themselves travel at speeds of around 50kph and can be driven without any sort of road tax or legal paperwork in his native India.

"Most of the cars are housed in the museum," he says, "and every now and again I get to take them out on the roads, normally for journalists interested in seeing them. The authorities don't mind as the people love it. They all go crazy when I'm out driving them. Everyone loves the cars." Sudhakar spends three to four hours a day on his creations - in addition to his full-time job in the printing industry. One of his newest projects will be a live creation over the course of 120 hours in front of gathered media. And the car in question is a dining table complete with eight seats.

"I'm going to build it in that time, put eight guests in the seats and drive them around while they are served dinner," he says. "I'm looking forward to it." Sudhakar talks of all his projects with the same energy as the 14-year-old version of himself that first worked on designing and creating vehicles. And he genuinely insists that there are no favourites. "I love all my cars equally," he says. "There are none that are better than others in my eyes. I work very hard on each of the creations so I can never really single one out. I love them all."

As for what the future has in store, he has no idea except that he plans to take the number of creations past the century mark. "Once I get to 100 cars, that might be enough," he adds. "Plus, the museum will probably run out of space!" Sudhakar claims that visitors flock from all over the world to see his wacky cars, the majority of which he admits are schoolchildren. "The children seem to love the cars more than anyone else," he smiles with childlike enthusiasm. "They all go crazy when they see the cars in the museum. And if people keep on loving my work, then I'll keep on building them." [e-mail]