“Chris McIntosh’s first recliner was not your standard La-Z-Boy—it was electric-powered and capable of going 15 mph. After finishing it a year and a half ago, he used it to pull a doughnut on his high school’s front lawn, circle the gym during a pep rally, and rule the street near his home in Orinda, California. Now a freshman at the University of Southern California, McIntosh spent his youth building ad-hoc vehicles (he once made a mini hovercraft out of a leaf blower), so when the chair’s paltry electric motor burned out, he decided it was time for a monster makeover. “I wanted to go fast,” he says. To upgrade the recliner, he removed the electric motor he had installed, the motor’s controller, a pair of batteries, and other parts. He bought a nine-horsepower, four-stroke dirt-bike engine, which fit perfectly in the space beneath the seat, and welded on a fixed rear axle so the engine could power both rear wheels instead of just one, as the electric motor had. Bike engines need to be kick-started, but the recliner’s lever snapped when he tried to use it. He welded on a motorcycle kick-start lever instead.” w/ photos + video
