He replaced the stage with a workshop: the former singer of the Cluj-Napoca Opera built a wooden and electric car. Péter Szabó worked on the wooden car for three years, while it took six years to build the electric car.
A few weeks ago, Emil Boc posed with an electric car manufactured in Cluj-Napoca and beat his chest in Bucharest, on the occasion of the European People's Party congress. The beauty of the whole thing was that the mayor of Cluj has no merit whatsoever in the unique birth of the vehicle with a sporty design, which in part
it was made in a workshop in Koronka and is the result of the efforts of Péter Szabó and a couple of his colleagues.
The construction of the original concept vehicle is an amazing technical achievement, even more so in light of the fact that its designer and main contractor, Péter Szabó, is not an engineer, but a former singer of the Hungarian Opera in Cluj. The fact that he was able to walk on the boards representing the world can actually be attributed to chance, because he was working as a carpenter in Marosvásárhely when someone heard him sing and recognized his talent.
Before long, she was already singing in the local philharmonic choir, from where she moved to Cluj-Napoca, the opera choir, and within a short time she got a role in the Queen of Csárdás. He was the soloist of the Hungarian Opera in Cluj for more than two decades, until he decided to end his stage career.
"My hands were itching to create something"
- recalls the main reason for the decision.
It also contributed, he admits, to the fact that he felt that at 55 he was too old to play heroic lovers.
It started with a carriage
His passion for creating with his hands was not new, he was also sculpting in his youth, and he never had to go to the neighbor for his technical talent. However, the electric car had antecedents, the first being a carriage. This was built by Péter Szabó in 2010, during his operatic career, purely for fun.
Two years later, he felt that he wanted a bigger challenge and started building a wooden car. When I first heard that a handyman from Vásárhely had built a passenger car out of wood, I imagined the vehicle as a rudimentary, caricature-like contraption. So I stared in shock, probably with wide eyes, and maybe even with my mouth open, when my reporter took me to his workshop next to his house in Koronka, which also served as a garage, and I saw the car. I caught a glimpse of an impressively elegant, powerful, characterful vehicle, whose body shone not with the brittleness of metal, but with the warmth of wood.
It invited me to touch it, to run my fingers along the delicately worked curved surfaces. It could be a prop for a James Bond movie, I thought.
The chassis and parts of the completely self-designed car are made of metal, but the body is made of laminated ash wood, as are the steering wheel, switches and windshield wipers. He chose ash because it is not only hard, but also flexible, explains Péter Szabó. He processed three cubic meters of wood, but only 25 percent of it was used in the car, because of the curved shapes, there was a lot of waste.
11 layers of varnish were added to the wood, so it is completely waterproof. Part of the bodywork is made of stained wood, which gives the car a patina and retro style. "This is industrial art," says the creator self-consciously, and there is no exaggeration in the statement.
A film crew from Great Britain traveled to Koronka to shoot a clip about the wooden car, and looking at the vehicle, I think it was worth the effort.
The automatic transmission passenger car is powered by a six-cylinder Ford Taunus engine. The beautiful vehicle turned up at several exhibitions and fairs, including Hungexpo, Frankfurt, Nuremberg and Bucharest. Although it is not registered for circulation, and therefore cannot drive on public roads, its creator admits that he ventured out into the streets of Koronka with it a few times. According to him, there is no chance of trying to put it on the market in Romania.
300 horsepower, 450 km range
The owner of an IT company in Cluj, Arobs, asked Péter Szabó to build the electric car after he saw the wooden car that had slipped out of his hands. This was a technically more complex task, it took six years, and computer scientists were also involved in the project.
The electric car received a streamlined body | Photo: archive of Péter Szabó
The design started with the design, first he made a mock-up. The suspension of an Audi A8 was used for the vehicle, the body is made of carbon fiber. The car is powered by two 150 horsepower electric motors built into the wheels. It is registered for circulation, which is largely due to former prime minister Nicolae Ciucă, who saw it at an exhibition and intervened with the competent authority. They used it quite a lot in Cluj-Napoca, and once ventured out onto the highway. Its range with a single charge is 450 km, its top speed is questionable.
"It has 300 horsepower, it should go 300 kilometers, but we only went 120 km/h. This is a hand-built car, so it may not be advisable to drive it too fast”
says Péter Szabó. The cost price of the vehicle exceeds 450,000 euros, the costs were borne by Arobs. He did not build the two cars entirely by himself, József "Öcsi" Csákány, Csaba Mátyus and István Ritz were important collaborators, he emphasizes.
The idea of the creators of the first and so far only Transylvanian electric car is to produce a series of ten of it. However, this would require a small plant, which would require a significant investment, and the financing has not yet been resolved.
However, Péter Szabó does not rest on his laurels until the financial obstacles are removed.
"I want to build a three-wheeled bicycle, heated, with a convertible solution. It will be made of ash wood, I will even make the springs out of laminated material. I'll start in the winter"
- says.
He experienced difficult moments in his previous projects, there was an example where the results of a week's work had to be thrown away, however, he claims, he never thought of giving up.
"I couldn't have done it without my faith in God. I got the strength from him, I prayed"
- reveals what helped him through the difficulties.
Featured image: Péter Szabó in the ash car | Photo: archive of Péter Szabó
