It goes without saying that there are lots of Tesla super-fans out there. The company that brought us the first mass-market electric car that was exciting hasn’t since strayed from its identity as an innovator.
But one drawback could be that the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has a propensity for making ambitious and enticing promises, and then making us wait ... and wait ... to see them come to fruition.
The latest was Tesla’s unveiling of its first pickup truck prototype, the Cybertruck, in a press conference last year. And based on that event, there’s a lot to get excited about, including promised ranges of up to 500 miles and a version that goes zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds.
And while the early versions of the Cybertruck aren’t due to hit the streets until late 2021, there’s one Tesla enthusiast who doesn’t want to wait that long — and his impatience inspired him to build his own.
According to Reuters, a Bosnian man named Igor Krezic and his company, Stark Solutions, spent eight months disassembling a Ford Raptor F-150 and then rebuilding it as a copycat Cybertruck.
A team of IT professionals and engineers created the version to visually mimic Tesla’s truck, although there are a lot of differences. For one, this knockoff isn’t an electric, and it’s not the same size.
Practicality aside, the company’s owner reportedly loves Ford trucks as much as Teslas, so he effectively wanted to create a Frankenstein. A spokesperson for Stark Solutions says the result, which resembles the blocky body type of the Cybertruck, is generating a lot of attention. But there’s one problem: the group is having trouble registering the pickup because vehicles with sharp edges like this one are banned in Bosnia.
So maybe you won’t be able to find one in the Balkans, but it does raise the question: how many traditional pickup users will be enamored enough with the Cybertruck’s unusual body style to warrant some real, street legal copycats? I guess we’ll wait and see.