He aluminium can and he did

By Bree Harding

Feb 14, 2025

Peter Young once built a functional motorbike from a Victa lawnmower motor and a pile of scrap that could clock 25 miles an hour.

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The handyman’s many and varied skills don’t come from tinkering around in his man cave for the good part of his 69 years, but from the circumstance of his father’s trade.

“My dad was the manager of a big panel shop — the biggest panel shop in the Southern Hemisphere — they did everything,” Mr Young said of the workplace that employed 65 “blokes”.

“They did chassis-straightening on trucks, chrome plating, radiator repairs, panel work, painting cars — they did everything.”

This Mad Max-inspired fuel tanker truck has a ‘glass’ dome that came from an egg timer and realistically detailed bulletholes in its side. Photo by Bree Harding

As a kid, Mr Young was placed in different areas of the factory to learn a little of this and a little of that.

“They’d say to me, ‘Today you can work in the panel shop, you’re going to learn to panel beat and weld’,” he said.

When business was quiet in one workshop, Mr Young became versatile enough to bolster manpower in another rather than being “let go”.

Having such opportunities was a perk of being the boss’ son.

He learned to solder radiators, paint and pinstripe cars, fit windscreens, assemble vehicles and more.

He says the only thing he didn’t learn — because he didn’t want to — was upholstering.

But even that’s not entirely true for this Jack of many trades.

“I never got to use a sewing machine, that’s just too big a job for me, but I can put headlining in and the door trims and all that with leather and vinyl, but not stitching seats,” Mr Young said.

The tracks on this army tank were made using old garden edging and the turret actually swivels. Photo by Bree Harding

By 16, Mr Young was buying rare cars and rebuilding them, including an old Zephyr that he won a motor show trophy for and was featured in a magazine.

He continued for most of his working life restoring and customising vehicles, while doing a little security work on the side.

Mr Young says while he’s now retired, his brain has not.

“I’ll be laying in bed at night and start thinking about something I want to make, so I have to get up and start building it,” he said.

These midnight mind gymnastics manifested intensely during the COVID-19 lockdown era, as people in home studios and workshops across Victoria took up crafts and hobbies they’d never had time for before.

Mr Young found himself watching Desert Collectors, a show hosted by Nigel Quick and Norm Clarke as they travelled the Australian outback searching for unique treasures and the people who made or collected them.

It was there Mr Young saw many man caves had planes fashioned from soft drink cans strung from their rafters.

He thought to himself: I can do that, but I can do it better.

“They just put cans together with a bit of glue; they don’t paint them or put pin stripes and stickers on them,” Mr Young said.

He started by making two planes; one he gifted to a sick child, the other to keep as the first piece in his collection that ensued.

That collection now includes a Doctor Who-inspired moon buggy, a Mad Max-inspired tanker truck and a military-inspired army tank complete with a ladder and miniature army men at its helm.

Just last week after a surgical procedure for Mr Young, life slowed down again — not dissimilar to how it did during lockdowns.

The tread effect on the tyres of this Doctor Who-inspired dune buggy was achieved using hot glue. The hot metal look at the end is a paint effect. Photo by Bree Harding

He returned to his workshop over 32 scattered hours to add a Thunderbirds-inspired aircraft to his portfolio.

His are not just unmoving can artworks that swing from fishing line only with the breeze coming through the cracks of outback sheds.

His, while still somewhat fragile being made from lightweight aluminium, are semi-functional with moving parts.

“I try to make a wheel look like a real wheel when I make it, including the way it’s painted. You’ve got to get them all right. I wanted this to look like a real tank,” Mr Young said, as he gestured towards a camo-clad creation with garden edging ingeniously used to simulate tracks.

“I wanted someone to look at it and say, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if that turned’, and it actually does; it turns whichever way you want.”

Mr Young doesn’t use plans from books or the internet. They are all dreamed up in his head.

Peter likes to paint and pinstripe his can creations rather than leave soft drink brand logos visible. This plane has a working motor inside, which powers the propeller. It’s got enough oomph to make the plane roll along. Photo by Bree Harding

His toolkit for the art consists of basic instruments: tin snips, a hot glue gun, a soldering iron and a pop rivet gun.

Rather than looking for items to repurpose for his projects, he sees scrap and lets his imagination loose on it.

He’s salvaged mini motors from other toys, borrowed propellers from model aircraft, deconstructed an egg timer to utilise its transparent dome, and fashioned bolts and washers to make swivelling mechanisms.

His resourcefulness even had him laying a Drumstick ice-cream cone wrapper flat as a template to cut aluminium to create a nose cone for his latest piece.

All his artworks, besides the tanker, have axles between their wheels so they physically roll along as a wheeled vehicle does in real life.