American builds a three-metre-wide Ford
Tyler Fever, creator of the YouTube channel Prop Department, turned a 1988 Ford Festiva into a three-metre-wide car that can also be driven on public roads under a special permit. He used three donor cars for the project and built the centre section of the body essentially from scratch.
Festiva doubled in width
A standard first-generation Ford Festiva is about 1.6 metres wide. Fever’s car measures 3.05 metres, or 10 feet, across.
The main body was cut in half lengthways, and a new centre section was built between the two halves. The floor was reinforced with 3.2 mm sheet steel, while 1.2 mm material was used for the roof. Structural components were cut with a CNC laser, and some panels were made using a large-format 3D printer.
The front grille also had to be made from scratch. It is about 2.4 metres wide.
The drivetrain needed a new driveshaft
The Festiva retained its original engine layout, which created one fairly obvious problem: one front wheel was now a very long way from the engine.
Fever made a custom driveshaft about 1.5 metres long to address this. Its geometry had to be corrected by hand after welding, because even the slightest bend in such a long shaft would cause severe vibration at high speed.
This is one of the most technically interesting aspects of the whole project. Building a three-metre-wide body is primarily a matter of metalwork, but making such a long rotating drivetrain component reliable requires much more precise balancing.
Two steering wheels, but only one driver
The cabin has two working steering wheels, but the accelerator and brake pedals are only on the driver’s side. The wide cabin allowed what is effectively a full row of seats to be installed at the front.
The car even has 14 cupholders, and a domestic air-conditioning unit was installed under the bonnet.
These features capture the project’s aim quite clearly. Fever was not trying to make the Festiva faster or improve its handling, but to create the most absurd machine possible that still worked.
More than 640 km on the road
The car is not merely a display piece. During a two-day test drive, Fever covered more than 640 km and reached a speed of over 115 km/h.
The three-metre-wide Festiva could not be used on US public roads as an ordinary passenger car. Fever obtained an oversized vehicle permit and commercial insurance for it.
This means the car is road-legal, but not under the same conditions as a standard Ford Festiva.
The opposite of an earlier project
Fever previously built an exceptionally narrow version of the same 1988 Festiva. For that project, the centre section of the body was removed, making the car so narrow that the original engine no longer fitted.
The new project goes in exactly the opposite direction.
From a technical standpoint, a three-metre-wide Festiva is not particularly practical, but as an engineering exercise it is much more interesting than simply adding a wide-body kit. The monocoque body, drivetrain, steering system and cabin all had to be reworked to suit the new dimensions.
