It’s an exciting time to be a car fan, the sector is rife with creativity and innovation. Supercars are going ever faster, luxury SUVs are growing ever comfier and electric cars are packing even more features into their battery-powered bodies.
Amongst all this innovation, though, a real trailblazer will sometimes rise above the mundane and wow us with their creativity.
Today is one of those days. We’ve found a true visionary who realized that a car should do so much more than just transport you from A to B. This innovator believes it should also serve as a musical instrument and be a place you can cook dinner.
Welcome to the future.
This creative genius resides on Chinese social media platform Douyin, the country’s name for TikTok, where they published a video documenting the build of their fantastic new mode of transport.
Through 10 glorious minutes of satisfying build montages, user Handy Geng shows how they combined cookery, travel and musical performance into this majestic piano, grill, tricycle...thing.
The vehicle, maybe it can be called the Grillano, moves under its own power, has a built-in grill for cooking barbecue skewers and adds a piano that can be played while you drive around.
On top of that, the piano keys have multiple functions in the machine, as they control the rotation of the cooking meats. What an excellent creation.
Through the video posted to Douyin, Handy Geng documents his construction of the awesome machine, so maybe you could replicate your own at home.
It starts with creating the shell of the vehicle, in which he then constructs the grill unit. Next, he wires up 52 motors that are each attached to an individual BBQ skewer and controlled by one of the piano’s white keys.
To do this, a small switch is glued underneath each of the electric piano’s keys, so whenever that key is played it rotates the corresponding skewer.
Once a fire pit is installed and all the electronics are fitted, our creative genius then adds two wheels to the body and a powered rear wheel under the seat at the piano.
The brightest minds in the office concluded that there must be a hub motor in the rear wheel powered by the batteries beneath the piano in order to drive the contraption.
After this intricate and wonderfully satisfying build, our hero then loads up the grill and takes his creation for a spin.
As he roves around his workshop making beautiful music, the meat cooking over his grill spins in an incredibly satisfying manner. Nowhere is this more pleasing than when he glides his hand over each key up the length of the piano, turning every skewer into a frenzy.
It’s safe to say that this contraption has captured the hearts of everyone here at Jalopnik.
In a world of overly-edgy electric vehicle design and increasingly complex car builds, this humble creation might actually be the car we all need. After all, who doesn’t want music and an easily-accessible supply of snacks whenever they’re driving?