It is another Lebanese initiative in the automotive world. This time around it’s about a Buggy built by Charles Aoun of Custom Rides. Charles built the buggy out of an Australian design in his workshop in Adonis and has put his heart and soul in it to make a professional product. We visited Charles in his workshop and during the testing of this buggy and we had the opportunity to take some pictures and have this chitchat with him.
Give some technical background on the Buggy.
It’s a 1250cc engine that fits on a Hayabuza, it can go up to 110km/h on first gear, and reaches 300km/h on the fifth gear, there’s also a sixth gear for even more speed.
We have an anti-blocking system attached to the back of the Buggy; we have transformed the gear box to have a shorter gear ratio, so now we can even engage 3rd and 4th gear. The car weighs between 450kg and 550kg. It can accelerate from 0 to 100 in 4.5 seconds.
You have uniballs so there are no rubbers, just road-end uniballs, more heavy-duty. Steering input is quite responsive thanks to a short steering ratio.
What did you call it?
No name, simply made in Lebanon
How did you come up with the idea especially that such projects are rarely covered by the media in Lebanon?
There’s no hope, we’re not trying to go anywhere with this, we’re just trying to show it to universities and car companies, maybe we can pull off something with the students or with the dealers.
Is anyone interested, any clients?
Well, we had 2 rumored clients, but they remain rumors, and rumors sometimes aren’t true.
Have you tried forming some sort of challenge or tournament for the car?
As you know, everything motorsport-related is organized by ATCL in Lebanon, it’s a bit complicated with ATCL, but we’re definitely going to try to start something. A lot of people are willing to buy this car in case we organize a tournament, I’m sure we’ll be able to field at least 10 cars.
What are your plans or projects for the future, other than this buggy?
We’re working on a motorcycle with three front wheels, a Batmobile and we have surprise we are working on where will unveil later.
We would like to wish Charles and many other similar Lebanese people that take the initiative of putting us on the world automotive map, all the best in their work and we hand them all the succes.
