By ALISON HORWOOD
Brett Harman believes one man's junk is another man's treasure.
The self-taught Wairarapa craftsman, his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Finn and Mitchell, scour local dumps and junkyards collecting pieces for unique pedal cars.
Two years ago, Mr Harman built a pedal car as a surprise for his sons, and
since then has turned his hobby into a burgeoning business.
"I was drinking with some mates in Ohakune a few years ago and had two hubcaps in my hand. I held them together and then just visualised the pedal car in between.
"Then I had a car accident two years ago and had a bit of spare time on my hands. Instead of going mad I thought I would start doing something with all the junk I was collecting."
The first pedal car he made attracted so much attention on the streets of Carterton near his home that he kept building and has not looked back.
He is now working on his fifth piece - a car inspired by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from the 1968 film.
Dick Van Dyke portrays an inventor who builds a flying car that drives by itself.
Mr Harman's car is made of a copper hot-water cylinder, a cedar sliding door and pram wheels.
The dashboard will be cedar, complete with flashing lights and motorbike gauges, and the upholstery domed leather.
"Everything on it is from the dump - only the steel frame and rivets are new," he says.
Mr Harman says it takes about two months to scrounge the parts for each pedal car, and about a fortnight to put them together. He sells them for $1000, and recently sold one to Australian film actress Cate Blanchett, in Wellington for filming Lord of the Rings.
"Someone suggested I should make some templates and build them off the production line, but I don't want them to be mass-produced. I like the fact that everyone has something different. No two can be the same."
Mr Harman, who is working as a model-maker on Lord of the Rings, builds the pedal cars in a studio outside his house - which he designed and built for $1700 from a disused barn, corrugated iron, concrete and hay.
"The philosophy in our family is that we don't buy anything - we either find it, or make it."
