Bad Obsession's 13-Year Mini Project Is Worth Watching From The Start

Time is a cruel mistress. As we stroll merrily along in our day-to-day lives we're completely blind to the fact that time is passing us by. Perhaps one day we embarked on a project to build a weird car that we really liked the idea of, and all of a sudden it's 13 years later and we're still tinkering on the darned thing. The current number one movie in America was directed by a kid who has never lived in a world without YouTube. He was six when Nik Blackhurst and Richard Brunning first started turning wrenches on Project Binky. How is your project car going? 

Blending two different kinds of performance car together is one of the great tenets of project car ideation. Usually this amounts to bench racing among your friends, but sometimes the idea gets out of the group chat and into real life. That seems to be what happened when a couple of blokes decided that instead of an all-wheel drive turbocharged Toyota Celica GT4 and a rusty vintage Mini, they should combine the two into a car that looked like a Mini and went like Toyota rally homologation special. 

Bad Obsession Motorsport

That's why we're taking it upon ourselves to highlight some of our favorite underrated builders in a new series we're calling Wrenchers You Should Know. Not only do some of these people deserve way more views than they're getting, but they're typically the Do It Yourselfer type, rather than the big corporate-sponsored four-figure-horsepower slop that's dominating your feeds. In each installment we'll introduce you to a cool new builder, talk about some of their work, and give you a few reasons why you should be watching their progress. Here we go, it's time to get the funk out!

There is definitely a case to be made that because this project has been floating around the internet for over a decade, most people are probably all aware of it and I don't need to bring any more notoriety to the Bad Obsession Motorsport channel. We've even talked about BOM on Jalopnik in the past. But a lot of people have come into the car hobby since then, and new people are born every day. The channel just released a new installment, so now is as good a time as any to discuss Project Binky and their various other exploits. 

Start here, with Episode One, and just work your way through it. I promise it's worth it. 

I'm sorry to do this to you right as summer is starting, but if you're unfamiliar with Project Binky, you're going to start digging in to well over a hundred hours of entertaining engineering content on their channel. This project is incredible, because it began years before widely-available 3D printing or scanning became a part of modern garage projects. These guys were out there machining and milling components by measuring with calipers and gauges, then modelling in cad from scratch. Your fave could never. 

Watching this series I am constantly amazed by the pair's ability to figure out the order of operations in which to build things. They know that they need to drill holes for the a component before installing another critical component, and accommodate for the unrelated (and as yet uninstalled) hardware along the way. It's an exercise in shoving ten liters of stuff into a five liter bag, and entertaining the entire way. 

These videos come in fits and starts from the duo, as they have a regular job to get up to and only dedicate time to this project when there is spare to be had. Sometimes they'll do a new video every month or two, and sometimes there will be a five-month lull as with the recent new installment. That always makes it a welcome surprise when a Binky update plops its way onto your YouTube feed. It's far from appointment viewing, but I definitely watch every time a new episode comes out. 

There's an opportunity in every video for you to learn some new skill, assuming you have access to a compete machine shop, or know how to design in CAD. I haven't got either the skills or equipment to manage a project like this, so I'm pretty well resigned to watching from afar as merely an admirer, and that's okay, too. 

This car has been running and driving for a while, and despite being torn down and completely rebuilt at least twice since, the project continues unabated. The most recent update involved a complete re-engineering of the alternator drive. Initially they'd developed a cable-driven arrangement, but have now resorted to a series of shafts and cogged belts to make it work. These are the kinds of engineering-related struggles that would have seen me hack apart a fender or firewall to fit the alternator where it normally goes, but these guys want the car to actually be nice when it's done. I don't really relate to that sentiment, but the car hobby takes all kinds. 

Back during the doldrums of 2020, the Bad Obsession Motorsports fellas dug into a second project, this one a bit simpler. I was ecstatic to see this series of videos launch, because it meant I had more to watch while stuck in my house in a pre-vaccine America. The British Racing & Sports Car Club kicked off a new class for inexpensive race cars based on the Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo, and Peugeot 107, so the boys decided to put together a C1 for the series and run it for charity. 

Being engineers, they read through the minimal rulebook for these cheap machines and started making changes that skirted legality. My favorite piece of the puzzle is a home-made brace that straps to the rear axle to help box it in and make it stiffer, as the rulebook declared no aftermarket rear anti-roll bars could be fitted to the little French hatchback. It's a creative interpretation, and one I wouldn't have thought of. You'll soon find out that Nik will stop at nothing to make sure he can build a new bracket. 

If you have suggestions for some lesser known builders on social media, please feel free to drop them in the comments section as well. I'm always on the lookout for folks out there doing cool stuff. It doesn't have to be just cars, either. While I'm well apprised of the car and motorcycles building scenes, I'd love to get deep into the nitty gritty of some more niche topics. Do you follow some cool folks building snowmobiles, jet skis, or DIY fighter jets or something? I want to know about it.

And yes, you're welcome to do some self promotion in the comments as well. Let everyone know where they can follow your build and what you're up to. If it's unique or good, we'll feature it on the blogs.