THE WORLD’S only wooden supercar, known as the "Splinter”, is a high-performance sports car that is estimated to be 90% wood. Fuelled by a lifelong desire to design and build his own car and inspired by a WWII airplane called the de Havilland Mosquito, designer and builder, Joe Harmon, from Mooresville, North Carolina, spent roughly nine years working on the Splinter with the help of his team. The Splinter began as a graduate school project at North Carolina State University and has continued since. Joe told Ridiculous Rides: “I’ve wanted to design and build my own car for my whole life. And we thought building it out of material like wood would present an interesting challenge that might make us do some out of the box things and it would make it a little bit more of a scholastic endeavour.” Joe said that the goal was to use wood in the construction of the car in every possible application - wood is our only naturally renewable building material, it is biodegradable and takes a small amount of energy to produce. Also, according to Joe, wood has a better strength-to-weight ratio than steel and aluminium. Every wooden part of the Splinter is made from composite construction. Each wheel consists of over 275 individual pieces. The wheel centres are made from rotary-cut oak veneer, covered by a walnut sunburst on the outside face and a cherry sunburst on the inside face. The Splinter's engine is a 7.0L small-block V8. The chassis is built almost entirely of wood composites, the body is made from woven strips of cherry veneer with a balsa core. Even though the car is not comfortable and may be impractical, Joe said that the goal in creating this car was to explore new ideas and perceptions of wood. He said: “The car was built as a design and build exercise to kind of show people what's possible and try to figure out for ourselves what we thought was possible.”
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MotorTranscript
00:00 I've wanted to design and build my own car for my whole life, and we thought building
00:06 it out of material like wood would present an interesting challenge.
00:11 The world's only wooden supercar.
00:14 Just a ton of work, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into it.
00:27 Obviously a lot of sandpaper as well.
00:31 I'm Joe Harmon, I am the designer and builder of the world's only wooden supercar.
00:40 I've wanted to design and build my own car for my whole life, and we thought building
00:45 it out of material like wood would present an interesting challenge.
00:54 Wood is our only naturally renewable, totally biodegradable building material.
00:59 Has a better strength to weight ratio than steel and aluminum.
01:03 And it's just a beautiful material, it's a lot of fun to work with.
01:09 I think there are roughly 20 different species of wood in the car.
01:12 We try to stick to North American hardwoods.
01:14 From an engineering standpoint, we all consider it to be interchangeable based on their density
01:18 and strength.
01:19 Walnut, cherry, maple, birch, hickory, ash.
01:25 Most of the chassis is birch and maple.
01:30 Wheels are walnut, the rest is a mixed bag.
01:35 So interior wise, all wood steering wheel.
01:38 There's no metal in that steering wheel anywhere whatsoever, it's nothing but wooden glue.
01:44 A shaft that you see coming through the middle is the gear shift.
01:47 The transmission is behind the engine in this car, and the shift linkage goes over the top
01:51 of the engine.
01:53 Wheels were a ton of work, they're the most complicated part.
01:57 Wood's very strong, but it's also soft, so when you come to these hard points of metal,
02:02 you need to be able to spread that load out over a larger area.
02:09 Splinter was built over a nine year period of time.
02:13 When I was in graduate school, I was lucky enough to where my dad would pay for me to
02:16 eat and go to school and live, so I didn't have any other responsibilities other than
02:20 to work on this car.
02:21 It's a ton of work, pain, suffering, and sanding.
02:27 As far as I can remember, the tires are the only completely off the shelf piece of this
02:32 car.
02:33 I knew it would be a ton of work.
02:35 I get asked the how many hours did this take question a lot.
02:38 I tell people 20,000 hours.
02:40 It was very slow, very time intensive process.
02:44 Thinking how to get myself into all this.
02:47 It ends up pulling everybody that's close to you into a project like this.
02:51 I lived through the 10 years of building it.
02:54 That was quite an experience.
02:56 It's still completely relevant today and looks totally different from anything else I've
03:01 ever seen.
03:02 It was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for sure.
03:06 Mostly tears on my part.
03:11 It has a 7 liter small block V8.
03:14 We think it makes about 650 horsepower.
03:16 Has a 6 speed manual transmission.
03:18 Airbag suspension at all four corners so we can adjust the height.
03:21 It's a very, very low vehicle and we have to get it on and off of trailers a lot, so
03:25 being able to pick it up and down helps.
03:28 It's hot, noisy, uncomfortable.
03:32 Can't see out of the back of it.
03:36 You can barely see out of the front of it.
03:38 You're in a really, really low driving position.
03:41 That's kind of part of what makes it raw and makes it exciting.
03:46 It's not exactly the most practical vehicle in the world.
03:49 It's not very good as a grocery getter.
03:55 The fastest I've been in the vehicle is probably 30 miles an hour.
04:04 I'm sure it has a top speed.
04:05 I have no idea what it is.
04:07 But the weight and the aerodynamics and the power that it makes, maybe the engine could
04:13 push this thing to 200 miles an hour.
04:16 I don't know.
04:17 I feel fairly certain that it will never happen, but it's probably theoretically possible.
04:22 The car was really built as a building and engineering exercise to show people that you
04:26 could do it.
04:28 Heat is a concern.
04:29 What will happen is if this car gets too hot, it will start letting go and the panels will
04:33 get droopy and they'll fall apart.
04:36 The vehicle can catch on fire fairly easily.
04:39 Just so happens with this one, there will be less left over at the end if it does catch
04:43 on fire.
04:47 When I look back on it, I think about all the good times I had.
04:55 The coolest thing about the Splinter for me was getting to go through this process and
04:58 realize that I've got the absolute best friends and family that anybody could ever ask for.
05:03 How many Splinters did I actually get during the build?
05:07 I lost track.
05:09 I got my fair share for a lifetime's worth.
05:11 [music]