News: Enthusiast gives old dodgems new lease of life

WHO HASN’T dreamed of driving a dodgem out of the fairground and down the road? Peter Ward not only imagined doing so but is in the process of converting around 40 of the little cars to do exactly that.

Ward, 51, who lives in Minster, Kent, has been collecting old battered dodgems for just one year but already owns around 40 of them. Most date from the 1960s and 70s, and cost him around £350 each from fairgrounds and auction sites.

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So far he has restored six, fitting each of them with an electric motor that gives a top speed of around 4mph. He hopes to sell each fully restored car for £2,000.

Ward’s hobby began when he saw a dodgem advertised on Ebay. “I thought I might put some lights on it and it would look good  in the garden. You start getting ideas and I wanted to get it running. It was a great feeling when it did. I started looking for dodgems online, then it just started to get out of hand.”

Ward has since driven one of his dodgems to his local McDonald’s and was stopped by people who wanted to take his photograph.

“If you want to turn heads you could buy a Ferrari but you can’t buy one of these because they’re rare; that’s the difference,” he said.