Think of a manly car.
What do you picture, a Porsche, Ferrari, or maybe a jacked-up truck? All good choices, but you would be wrong. No, I contend the manliest car on the planet is the four-wheeled hunk of steel you see above.
It’s called the Reboot Buggy and it has been designed not to please people but rather the car gods.
Designed and built by Joey Ruiter, the Reboot Buggy was penned to harken back to the earliest point of wheel mobility, the horse and buggy, which is where the name is derived.
As Ruiter explains in the video below, he’s grown tired of simply going to the store to get something. Instead, he wished to design and build his own car that wasn’t driver-centric but rather car-centric. In fact, his first draft of the design didn’t even have a place for a driver.
“It sounds strange, but I wanted the vehicle to determine its design,” Ruiter explained in a prepared statement, “even if it means ignoring the driver’s needs.”
So how did Ruiter put together a car designed simply to be a car? He bolted up a small block V8 mid-frame that produces 470 horsepower. To that, he mated a three-speed automatic that sends power solely to the rear wheels.
The idea behind the simple drivetrain being that no matter where someone went, someone would be able to repair the Reboot. Even the wheelbase was, as Ruiter explains in the video below, “for the car’s sake.”
I simply love the Reboot Buggy. It’s exactly what is missing from the modern automotive world. All cars now – no matter how powerful – are designed to please the driver like an appliance. None is made just to be a car.
That, my friends, is perhaps the manliest thing anyone can do: build a fire-spitting car that does nothing but drive because it can. Forget comfort and efficiency. The Reboot Buggy just wants to drive.
