Talking Skulls, Thor's Hammer Medallions Bring Grim Scandinavian Despair To Thunderhill [24 Hours Of Lemons]

The last time the Black Metal V8olvo raced, it was black and blue... and evil. It's still evil, but- like a bleak Swedish winter of death- it's all in white now.

The roof-mounted vacuum-powered skulls have been retrofitted with electrical innards and anatomically correct arms; when you pull the Metal Switch (a BMW 2002 hazard-light switch) on the dash, a PA speaker blasts Immortal, the skulls' red eyes flash, and the jaws snap open and closed.

We'll have a how-to on this project later on, but for now all you need to know is that Volvo 240 door-lock motors move the jaws, and a turn signal flasher hooked up to a set of three Bosch relays controls them. Sadly, it appears that the VDO designers who made these lock actuators never anticipated a duty cycle involving nonstop up-down-up-down operation for hours at a time, so the skulls have had some reliability issues.

The drivers of a Swedish car must be armed with Thor's Hammer, aka Mjöllnir, so I made some for the team out of rusty steel and spikes. A few junkyard trips netted a bunch of Volvo emblems, while various emblems provided many numeral 8s (BMW 318s, Mercedes-Benz 280s, and Volvo 850s were good sources). You don't want to step on one of these babies barefoot!

Add some post-Halloween clearance-sale monk costumes, and there's your Black Metal V8olvo uniform!

Your metal is weak! That's what the Swedish text down the sides of the car means.