By Canadian Press

‘Star Wars’ fan builds rideable, two-metre-tall starfighter from scrap

Apr 10, 2018 | 11:30 AM

HALIFAX — A Nova Scotia man has hand-built the dream ride of “Star Wars” fans: A remote-controlled, rideable TIE fighter replica.

Allan Carver of Queensland welded together steel, foam and scrap wheelchair motors to create a two-metre tall replica of the Imperial Fleet’s go-to fighter.

The starfighter — complete with wings, wheels and a cockpit large enough to carry a full-grown man — tops out at 10 km/h and is programmed to emit TIE fighter sound effects, he said.

“I didn’t want people to look at this and start picking it apart. I want people to look at this and go ‘That’s a TIE fighter,’” Carver said. “The proportions are right, the details are close.”

He said he was inspired to build it last December during the release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

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“I was like ‘You know what would be cool? If you could actually drive a giant TIE fighter,’” Carver said.

Carver, who owns an advertising firm and creates furniture and other projects in his free time, said the replica took him three months to build, mostly from recycled materials, but he’s not sure how much it cost him.

He said he’s known as the “mad inventor” among his friends and family, and his neighbours often ask him to fix broken appliances.

Carver left a previous job in advertising to start his own company.

“When I went out on my own I decided I wasn’t going to put off those ideas. Or just talk about ideas. I wanted to do them.”

He said he pushes advertising clients to be more creative in their methods.

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” he said.

For now, Carver said the TIE fighter will stay at his house — it just fits through the double-doors of his home — until an August parade in nearby Hubbards, N.S.

Fadila Chater, The Canadian Press