Iron Man wants to have animal park

The man better known for his collection of vintage and customised cars and cycles, K Sudhakar, is not satisfied with his over 150 creations. He plans to have a park where he wants to have life-sized mechanised walking animals!

"This animal park will have mechanised walking animals like a baby elephant, wild boar, dog etc. I hope to get this project ready by January next year," says the commerce graduate who runs the Sudha Cars museum at Bahadurpura.

His facination for cars and customisation, though, is still intact. He had recently designed the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation's open top buses in the city. And what more, he's working on a 40-seater double decker bicycle -- a sort of extension of his 2005 Guinness World Record creation, the largest tricycle in the world.

The tricycle that got him the laurels is 41 ft 7 inches high and weighs about 3 tons with the wheel diameter being 17 ft and the vehicle length extending up to 37 ft and 4 inches. It took him over 3 years to built this monster which is on display at his museum.

It all started for the auto enthusiast as a hobby after he created his first customized cycle at the age of 14. According to him, in 1991 when he was in New Jersey, he saw a promotional Volkswagen car and that ignited the idea of a skating shoe car in him. “I realized these wacky cars drew instant attention and brought a smile to peoples' faces,” he explains and recalls the encouragement he got from his father.

“I used to spend a lot of my father's money, but now I am earning name, fame and money,” Sudhakar muses sitting at his dream office which is designed by himself. The office itself resembles a museum with a table designed like the 1908 Ford's Model T, a teapoy like the1927 differentials and suspension, a 1922 Rolls Royce Radiator Clock, 1937 Willys gear box as a lamb, a 1932 USA Buffalo gasoline pump as a cupboard and to top it all, a 1929 Ford Wheels and Buke mudguard as a three-seater sofa.

It's amazing to know that all of these were collected from nearby junk yards and recreated. Heaps of scrap, in other words, made his dream come true. Sudhakar has given live demonstrations of his vehicles on various occasions at the Tank Bund and the Necklace Road. He plans to conduct free exhibitions in the city and across the country and is awaiting sponsors.

Perhaps from his own experience, he points out, “our road-side mechanics know more than any university professor. I learn from them. And for my convenience, there are about 50 junk yards around Bahadurpura.” As for his continuing inspiration, he says, “I started all this as a hobby but soon I had to shelf all these creations and that ended up as my museum. I plan for my creations but sometimes pick up themes from current affairs as well,” said a humble Sudhakar.

What's on display

At the Sudha cars, one finds a wide range of Sudhakar's creations including over 30 different designs of bicycles from single-seaters to multi-seaters like penny farthings, tandems, made for each other, velo cars, recumbents, micro cars, lightfoots, cycle trains, sociable etc. including the smallest bicycle in India which is about 6 inches high. Here, for the visitors, Sudhakar has some recreations of early 20th century models of cars & buses, both single & double deckers. Among the others on display at his museum are brinjal car, camera car, cigarette car, condom bike, cricket ball car, shiv ling car, cup & saucer car, helmet car, computer car, double-bed car, football car, beach buggy, kings carriage, cartoon car, fun cart, fountain pen bike etc.

K Sudhakar from the city has been invited to participate in the Fourteenth Annual East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Championship will be held on May 5, 2012. Kinetic sculpture races are organized contests of human-powered amphibious all-terrain works of art. The original event, the Kinetic Grand Championship in California, is also called the "Triathlon of the Art World" because art and engineering are combined with physical endurance during a three day cross country race that covers 41 miles and include sand, mud, pavement, a bay crossing, a river crossing and major hills. The event, first conducted in the year 1969, has become a world championship with participants from across the world. On May 7, 2011, twenty-six teams had brought 33 sculptures to Baltimore for the 13th annual East Coast Championship