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Metal movie machines leave customers saying 'I'll be back'

Ben Turner
28/ 5/2008

'I’LL BE back' ... That may be what a couple of cars said before they were scrapped – and their parts were used to make these amazing robots.

For Robocop and Terminator – two extraordinary man-made metal figures manning a Macclesfield doorway – are constructed entirely out of old engine parts.

Painstakingly welded together, they each weigh about half a tonne and their indomitable presence has led owner Garth Brewood to name them after Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and Peter Weller’s famous characters.

Life-sized and holding realistic poses, their resemblance to the 1980s mechanical movie hero and anti-hero is uncanny – and the indestructible pair can even swivel at the hips.

On close inspection, you can see each bolt, screw, piston, spark plug, clutch par, gear box part, chain and piping.

A proud Garth, who runs Aladdin’s Cave antiques store on Old Park Lane, said: "Basically, you name it or pick it up in a mechanics garage and it is likely to be in there, and they’ve been put together by hand."

And Garth says they are leaving customers gasping with jaw-dropping amazement.

But the sci-fi fan, who will say only that he paid "a hefty sum" for the rust-free room-mates, admits he knows next to nothing about them.

"They are an absolute work of art – but I haven’t got a clue who made them," said Garth. "I first saw them two years ago and tried to buy them then. They are clearly unique."

The previous owner had kept them in his office at work, having been given them by a client who went bankrupt, so they have barely been seen before.

Garth said: "He approached me a couple of weeks ago and offered them to me.

"They break up into five parts. The torsos alone took four men to lift. But the proportions are so good, they stood up again straight away.

"Who would even conceive of making something like this?

"A professional welder has been in and says he wouldn’t have a clue how to begin to make them.

"Another guy who builds engines for a living said he couldn’t believe what he was seeing."

He says he will never sell them, and has no plans to put them in a museum.

He plans to rent them out instead, and says he has already been approached by one Macclesfield school.

Anyone interested in "borrowing" the robots, or if you know who made them, call Garth on 07720901899.