By Hannah Stevens @hannahshewans
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Videographer / Director: John-Paul Steele
Producer: Ruby Coote, Hannah Stevens
Editor: Marcus Cooper
Jerry Patrick, who owns car replica extraordinaire AKA Junk, has been transforming cars into classic cartoon and movie vehicles for over a decade.
After falling in love with the Mach 5 in the 60’s, 51-year-old Patrick had to fulfil his lifelong dream of driving the real deal.
He said: “The inspiration behind the Mach 5 was straight off the cartoon.
“Back in 1967-ish when the cartoon came out, I was really enthralled as kid to watch it. And I thought, ‘One day I’m going to be driving a Mach 5’.”
To create the replica Jerry had to sacrifice a beautiful 94 corvette and completely remove the front and back of the car, before putting a new fibre glass body back on it to etch out the long lines of the speed racer.
But once the AKA Junk team were able to perfect the process, creating more Mach 5’s for clients became a cinch.
Patrick said: “The biggest challenge for the Mach 5 was building the first one.
“We started off with a body that was a sculpt from someone else and we had to morph it into what we wanted for our car, which would actually look right. And now we’re actually building our own body.
“So the hardest part is definitely getting that first one squared away and getting everything straight with it.”
The car enthusiast held nothing back when it came to injecting the sleek machine with some horse power.
He said: “My favourite part about the Mach 5 is the driving. When you hop in the Mach 5 you can just blow all the tyres and have fun with it, like you see in the cartoon.
“It just doesn’t get any better than that! I also get asked sometimes how fast the Mach 5 can go - let’s just say it’s unlimited.”
Even though there is plenty of source material, building an exact cartoon replica poses many challenges.
Jerry said: “For the Mach 5 logo we had to take a few creative liberties with it, obviously you’re going from a cartoon to a real car, so we made it pop as good as we could.
“It’s still as cartoon accurate as it can be, so at the end of the day we got it as close as we could and I think it turned out awesome.”