Unbelievable Survival – A Man Made A Bike Out Of His Broken Car To Escape The Sahara Desert!

Frenchman Emile Leray is a wanderlust – just like all of the travel enthusiasts out there. He loves to travel to outlandish places that are not frequented. And he loves to travel solo.

The year was 1993 and Emelie was on a normal solo trip in the Sahara desert – a part of his travel through the Northern Africa. Back in 1993, Northern Africa was not dangerous like today but was still sufficiently unstable.

Emilie decided to take a road trip through the Sahara desert in his classic Citroen 2CV.

To make it into the Moroccan part of the desert, he had to get past the military outpost at the border of the city of Tan Tan.

The soldiers guarding the outpost did not let Emelie cross the border because there was some fighting between the Morocco and West African tribes.

 

But Emelie was a true wanderlust and a bit of a mischevious guy too. He agreed to the soldiers’ request and turned back and then bypassed the outpost by going offroad into the restricted area!

Now he was where he wanted to be, the conflict between armies be damned.

---

And if you are wondering who clicked his photos, he clicked them himself. Look closely in the photo above, you can see the string he is holding that operates the camera.

---

But on his way to get back on the road, his car broke down on the rocky kutcha road he was driving on. The Citroen is not really a 4X4

And that’s how Emelie was stranded in the middle of the Saharan desert with a camera, his broken down car and some supplies to last him a few days. Back in 1993 there was no WhatsApp, Google maps or even satellite phones. There was no way he could have made contact with anyone back in Morocco and the twist in the tale is that no one knew that he was out there.

The soldiers at the outpost will say that Emelie turned back to go to TanTan again.

 

Emelie was at least 40 kilometers away from the nearest village. He knew he wouldn’t make it back on foot. So he did what Tony Stark did in the movie Iron Man

Emelie is an electric engineer and knew about the car very intimately. He knew that the engineering was robust.

 

So he rationed his food and water and dismantled his Citroen part by part to get it in a running condition again.

The car’s axle was broken, so he knew that there was no way he could drive back on four wheels. He took the body of the car and used it as a shelter against sandstorms. He used his socks as sleeves and started tinkering for real with his DIY motorbike.

 

He put the engine on the smaller chasis, used a rod to make a handlebar, and still had some space left for his luggage.

The axle was broken so his rear wheel ran due to pure friction in contact with the rotating drum. And because the drum is in direct contact and the wheel should move forward, the drum has to be revolving in the reverse – that meant he had to keep driving in the reverse gear.

 

He estimated that building the motorbike would take him only 3 days. But it took him 12 days.

He was down to half his water supply and was completely out of food.

 

He started his drive back to civilization, and you know what?! The bike worked amazingly. Yes, he did fall down a couple of times from the seat made of a tyre bumper but he did drive far enough that the traffic police took him into custody.

They slapped a hefty fine on him for driving an unregistered vehicle. Emelie did not care because he was finally safe.

It is an extraordinary story of survival because he not only survived the desert, he literally made a motorbike out of a car while surviving. Going one step further, he even took pictures of himself while he made it too.

Today Emelie Leray lives in his quiet home in France.

And in the backyard, he still has the motorbike he made out of a Citroen Car.

Ladies and Gentleman, the real Tony Stark!

Fact Source – DailyMail, Oddity Central