A YouTuber was convinced this wild stretched limo conversion was a fake, a mirage, or just some wild figment of his imagination. That was until he ended up behind the wheel of this bizarre machine, which he actually rescued from being scrapped.
The car in question is a red Geo Metro that had been absurdly stretched and had become something of a local icon in the Pacific Northwest during the 2000s. Eventually, this baffling machine disappeared from public view, and it was quietly forgotten about.
However, YouTuber Sam from the Hangar Garage channel managed to find the incredible car lying abandoned and becoming incredibly dusty in a Tacoma, Washington, storage facility. Realizing what an icon this car was, and that it wasn’t a fake, Sam decided the best thing to do was to save the Geo Metro and ensure it wasn’t scrapped.
That wasn’t all the YouTuber was going to do, though. Sam decided that the best thing for this car was not just to rescue it and get it running again, but also to take it on a redemption tour of over 3,500 miles to showcase it to America.
Who Created This Crazy Stretched Geo Metro?
This truly remarkable machine was the brainchild of the late Dave Cloud. Cloud was an eccentric but prolific Seattle-area builder who had become known for creating some truly bizarre electric vehicles. In 2012, Cloud hosted an AMA on Reddit, during which he stated he was the man behind the giant, stretched Geo Metro that had been seen in the Pacific Northwest.
“As far as I have been informed, there was a guy named Dave Cloud who liked to build a lot of electric contraptions such as race cars, electric cars, mini hydroplanes, all sorts of stuff, and this must have been the most efficient way to haul them around,” said Sam of Hangar Garage. To create the car, Cloud spliced multiple Geo Metros together and created a singular gullwing door that swings open across the whole length of the passenger side.
The door has hydraulic struts that allow it to open, although Sam conceded that these probably need replacing, as the door goes down quite slowly. But it still works, as we can see in his video. Sam bought the car sight unseen, and he definitely felt he had overpaid.
“So when you turn the key, it cranks, starts with starting fluid, or catches on fire- one or the other. Don’t hear the fuel pump running,” he said while he was troubleshooting the car. Thankfully, the fix was an easy one, as a thief had stolen the fuel pump relay.
The Interior Was a Biohazard
The YouTuber did say that the car’s interior had become a biological hazard. Rot and decay were beneath the green carpet, and there was a dead mouse trapped inside the ventilation system of the engine. Bad for both the mouse and Sam, who had to clean it up and deal with the horrible smell that the mouse had left. It was little wonder that Sam bleached the entire interior to try and clean it up as much as possible.
Despite the crustiness and the dead mouse, Sam was able to get the car running again. That culminated in his incredible 3,500-mile road trip in the Geo Metro, which included taking the car to the Hot August Nights car cruise in Clarkston, Washington, and Lewiston, Idaho. Despite the fact that it was parked alongside the likes of Chevrolet C8 Corvettes, this incredible vehicle stole the show.
Now, it’s run for over 3,512 miles since Sam was able to rescue it.