The Rivimino

A few years ago my friends and I discovered an odd car in a parking lot in Minneapolis, a strange-looking thing with custom tail lights, welded rails and an unpainted steel flatbed. We immediately concluded that this was perhaps the craziest, most brilliant, most ridiculous automobile we had ever seen in our lives, and so of course we had to take turns posing with it.

Dane posing with The Coolest Car Ever

I posted the image to my Photolog at Brainside Out, and thought little of it until last month when I got an email from a fellow named Allen up in Hibbing, Minnesota. Allen found the car while doing a Google Image search for the coolest car ever where it currently displays in second place, in the company of Lamborghinis, ahead of the Batmobile, and behind the 92 mpg FuelVapor Technologies Alé.

As it turns out, Allen’s car is the Coolest Car Ever. He bought it after it had been rear-ended, and he built the flatbed instead of replacing the trunk like normal. He calls it the Rivimino, a contraction of Riviera and El Camino.

The Rivimino, finished

The Rivimino, under construction

Cool, huh? Small world.