The Saga of The Crapster

That’s Tom Valentine with The Crapster, his toilet-shaped soapbox car (in case you’re wondering, Tom steers from the bowl):

"We put a lot of work and a lot of money into it," said Valentine, 38. He said his father, a retired NASA space-capsule engineer, designed the unusual entry.

It took Valentine and co-workers at Hewlett Packard 25 days to build The Crapster. Back home in Colorado, an appearance by the four-wheeled toilet was quite an event. People blocked roads, snapped photos and even hugged the bowl, Valentine said.

Here’s a video clip of the construction of the Crapster [YouTube]:

They entered it into the Red Bull Soapbox Race and crowds loved the commode! It won second place for the best-loved entries competition.

But like any good story, there’s drama: the beloved toilet car had gone missing:

… soapbox racers were more than a little dismayed when they woke Monday morning to find their U-Haul truck had been stolen from outside a downtown Seattle hotel. And whoever had been trolling for loot must have been surprised to open the cargo door and see the 7-foot-tall carpeted toilet. (Source: Seattle Times)

But this story has a happy ending, about a week later, police found it abandoned in a field. Tom and his racer friends were … um, relieved to be reunited with his soapbox car.