The "Sofa Car" in London

Factual Questions
1

A couple of years ago my wife and I were walking down Whitehall street in London when we saw the most interesting “car” come to a stop beside us at a light. At first, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was looking at, and when I finally realized how cool it looked, I didn’t have time to get my camera up to take a picture before it moved on…

The “car” had no frame or body: it looked like a sofa with a coffee table in front and a small television set with rabbit’s ears on top of the table. There were two guys lounging on the couch in very comfortable positions. That’s it. It looked like they simply plopped their living room furniture down in the middle of the street. Except this pile of stuff moved along with the rest of the traffic. Somehow they were steering and braking/accelerating with conceiled controls. It really looked neat.
I tried googling for this, but failed miserably.

Has anyone ever seen this vehicle?

Is this a one-of-a-kind thing or is it a common Brit thing to make cars that look like furniture?

Is it street legal in London?

and finally… does any have a picture? Please?

2

I think have found what you’re looking for:
http://www.cummfybanana.com/photo_gallery/category.php?catid=7

Seems like this company (?) Cumfy Bananna goes around England with their funky cars :slight_smile: The above is a link to the page on their site w/pics of the sofa car. Looks interesting.

3

I’m pretty sure I saw that “Sofa Car” in the intro to “Scrapyard Challenge” (or “Junkyard Wars”, as they call it on this side of the pond).

Well, one thing’s for sure: it’s a good way to get the cat hair off your sofa!

4

Perhaps OT a bit, but I used to see this car/caterpillar around here (San Francisco bay area) quite a bit.

Saw the lady’s public access show once, and, um, odd.

5

That’s it!
I had forgotten that they even have a reading lamp and a couple of house plants. Boy does that look cool.

Thanks ZipperJJ. Now I can show pictures when someone questions the validity of my sofa-car statement.

6

I’ve seen it driving around Farnborough, Hampshire too.

7

Top Speed 87mph!? :eek:

Anyway, don’t the English (or British) have a tradition of racing beds? I have a vague recollection of seeing four-post beds being pushed through the streets. The motorized couch looks like an extention of that. I notice Cummfy Banana also makes motorized beds.

8

Yes you have found the one and only manufacture of strange motorised objects etc. They appear in UK on the TV every so often.

Hospital beds are used by medical students and others to collect money for charity. Either sponsoring of waving buckets at passers by. They organise bed pushes through local towns usually with a pretty nurse lying on it.

Also beds used for “Pub Crawls” for charity. See how many pubs you can visit and drink half pint beer in each one. The person on the bed sometimes fall off on this one!