Interest
Cardboard Manufacturer Makes Lamborghini Out of Cardboard
posted on by Eric Stimson
Konno Konpou, a cardboard manufacturing company located in Ishinomaki, northeast of Sendai, has built a life-size model of a Lamborghini almost entirely out of cardboard. Called the "Damborghini" (danboard is the Japanese name for cardboard), it was finished on November 4 and has been on display since December 23 at Konpo's Factory, a store managed by Konno Konpou in the nearby town of Onagawa.
Hideki Konno, the CEO of Konno Konpou, has built a cardboard Gundam and dinosaur before, and prepared for the life-size Damborghini with models at ⅛ and ½ scale. The life-size Damborghini took half a year and six people to build. It weighs about 100 kg (or 220 lb) and can be carried easily with a team, as shown in the video below. Although it's for display only, the car includes LED lights and a cardboard V12 engine underneath the hood.
It also includes this variation on the Lamborghini emblem, which changes the Raging Bull into a peaceful dairy cow (the area has many dairy farms), wearing sunglasses just because Konno likes them.
Konno explains that he built the Damborghini to stem the outflow of young people from the region, which was hard-hit by the 2011 tsunami. "I wanted to show (not tell) that the area has adults with creative, cool jobs." The model has attracted tens of thousands of visitors to Konpo's Factory, and a tweet advertising it was retweeted about 10,000 times in one week.
Unfortunately, the Damborghini has made the news recently because it is accruing damage. Visitors, justifying themselves by the lack of signage saying otherwise, have been hitting and pushing the car. The store has relied on verbally admonishing them, but this has not prevented irreparable wrinkles and warps from appearing on the model. Konno was unwilling to put barriers around the car because he wanted the public to get close to it, but the store has now resorted to putting up a sign telling visitors to keep their hands off.
[Via The Page, Asahi Shimbun Digital and Kahoku Shinpō]
