Some people might say a 1991 Toyota Camry with 125,000 miles on it is ready to be turned in as a junk car but not Dave Clayman’s low-tech environmentally friendly car that cleans the air with feather dusters.
Not only has he transformed his 1991 Toyota Camry into a July 4th Special, but he uses it every day.
He said he decorated the car in red, white and blue for a Memorial Day parade a couple of years ago.
“I wanted to look my best and then I decided why just be patriotic a couple of days a year?” he said in a recent interview. “Why not make my everyday driver a patriotic driver?”
His car is lined in taped red and white stripes while his blue wheels have large white stars. On the roof he has attached two bicycles that power the waving of four, 20-foot flagpoles, each with a Stars and Stripes flag. The trunk and roof have non-slip strips to help would-be athletes access the bikes. A sign across the back window proclaims: “Powered by Insanity.”
A large plastic bull’s head with horns looks out from the grille while his self-explanatory Web site is spelled out along the sides of the roof: “supportnonsense.com.”
Today, he and his car, and his father who will be driving, will be a patriotic part of the Independence Day parade in Chatham, Mass. “Sometimes when I am parking at the supermarket I wonder, ‘What are those people looking at?’?” he said.
Clayman said his pranks started about 16 years ago when he was giving a woman an estimate for clearing out her attic. He has been clearing out estates for 25 years and owns a small trucking company.
“I gave a price and she said she’d think about it,” he said. He was about to leave when he found a pogo stick among the effects she wanted to clear and “started jumping up and down on it.”
He said she could not stop laughing and gave him the job on the spot. Impressed by her reaction, he said he became hooked on entertaining.