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NEW YORK — After a 4-year-old's uncle posted online about his nephew's dream car, BMW took to Photoshop to make the boy's dream come true.
On Jan. 30, auto blog Jalopnik posted a message sent by a reader regarding his nephew's dream car. He said he and the boy, Eli, had had a conversation about Eli's dream car.
"I know there are a lot of talented artists out there in the Jalopnik commentariat, and I would like to ask them all if they would consider drawing up their "Artist's Conception" of the car according to the carefully considered specifications he came up with," wrote Eli's uncle, Ben.
The specs for the car were as follows:
- "It's a BMW
- "42 wheels, and of course 42-wheel drive
- "It is powered by 19 Porsche engines, each producing 459 horsepower. I think they will need to be water-cooled turbocharged boxer 6s. This was entirely his own idea, but I commended his choice of using boxer engines for a multi-engine setup since they will stack so well.
- "The engines are all linked to a single transmission. He didn't specify, but I think viscous couplings for the inputs would probably be a good idea.
- "Power output is subdivided to all those wheels via a series of limited-slip differentials
- "There are seats and three steering wheels, and all three can drive the car at the same time.
- "The trunk is full of toys and you can play in it."
Jason Torchinsky, who wrote the original blog post, had a request for Jalopnik's readers: How many versions of Eli's car could they put together?
The post and resulting designs caught the attention of BMW, which wanted a piece of the action. The company featured one of the designs on its Tumblr, saying it would soon be submitting a design of its own.
On Tuesday, BMW posted on its Facebook page a concept of Eli's dream car — down to the last Porsche engine.
"Eli, we think you might be onto something. Our marketing department worked a little photoshop magic to bring your dream to life. We'll be sure to pass this on to our product designers. Thanks for sharing your idea and for being a BMW fan," the post said.
