Pioneer Log Homes of B.C.’s Cedar Rocket is making an impression at the 97th Vancouver International Auto Show which got underway on Tuesday.
“It’s the most photographed thing everywhere it goes,” said
Pioneer’s CEO and founder Bryan Reid Sr. from Vancouver Wednesday. “People think it’s just awesome.”
Joking Reid said he thinks he is going to have to go into the car business.
“Everybody needs a wooden car. They don’t know it yet, but they do.”
Handcrafted from Western Red Cedar, the Cedar Rocket set the Guinness World Record for the fastest log car clocking in at 74 kilometres an hour.
Gerald Overton Sr., who helped design it, said he has been able to drive the car up to a speed of 90 km/hr.
At the auto show people are asking does it really run and is it actually made out of wood, Overton said.
The car is powered by an electric battery with two air turbines that give it an extra push down the track.
“It’s kind of like a turbo booster on a car,” Overton said of the turbines.
A six-hour electrical charge of the battery lasts two or three car shows, he added.
“You can probably do about 300 km without a charge,” he added.
Reid and Overton hope the car will be auctioned off at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona in January 2018.
Proceeds from the sale will go to various veteran groups.
Reid said Pioneer donated a log bench in the name of Nash Overton — the 10-year-old Williams Lake resident who has struggled with a rare kidney disease called FSGS since he was two years old— for the car show’s gala and auction event which took place Tuesday evening.
“We raised $5,000,” Reid said, noting it will go straight to the BC and Yukon Branch of the Kidney Foundation of Canada. “I think that’s the highest price we ever got for a bench.”
Reid said about 100,000 people will go through the auto show by the time it ends on Sunday, April 2.
“By numbers it’s the largest auto show in Canada,” he said. “In our display we have wooden caricatures of all the guys. We are going to put them up at the office in Williams Lake so when people come and none of us are there they can take pictures. It’s kind of a joke thing.”
Reid said Trevor Seibert, owner of Lake Excavating, has a booth set up next to Pioneer’s as well.
It features Area 27, the new formula one race track Seibert helped develop on Osoyoos Indian Band Land near Oliver.
“We have Williams Lake row here, it’s cool,” Reid said.