A father and son team inspired by the Transformers film series have turned their Russian-made Lada into a shape-shifting robot with fully-functioning automatic weapons.
Gennadiy Kocherga and his son Sergey, spent almost six months turning their VAZ-2110 Lada into their own version of a character from the popular movie franchise. And their efforts went on full display at the Oryol stunt show in Russia this week.
“It looks like a world-class car, it can drive and shoot, it performs the same tricks as seen in the film, in the cartoons,” said Gennadiy.
The idea came to the inventor when he picked up a Transformers toy car during a trip to Singapore. Determined to build a life-size vehicle, he enlisted his son to help with retrofitting their old, and much-ridiculed, Lada.
The car has been toured around a number of Russian cities already and Gennadiy has plans to further develop the project next year.
“The next year, we plan to build another two cars, based on the same concept. We already have a lot of quirky ideas,” he added.
The Transformers franchise pits Earth-defending autobots, a team of alien robots who disguise themselves as cars, against the villainous, and similarly shape-shifting, ‘decepticons’. The autobots, guided by their leader Optimus Prime, help humans repel attacks masterminded by chief decepticon Megatron.
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In video posted online, Gennadiy’s creation, dubbed “Optimus Gennadievich Praimov”, morphs from car to robot while moving and even fires off a volley of shots from the automatic weapons stowed under the bonnet.
The Lada is infamous for its lack of frills. Nonetheless, it is the bestselling native car in Russia, making up a fifth of all new cars purchased, according to the latest figures.