Road to SEMA Influencer Introduction: Edd China
LONDON, ENGLAND
Edd China wears many hats: he's a mechanic, inventor, television presenter, and more! He's appeared on Wheeler Dealers, Top Gear, Junkyard Wars, Fifth Gear, and Auto Trader, but now you can see him on his own YouTube channel, Edd China's Garage Revival.
Edd has had an interest in cars and the mechanical world from early on in his life. He holds a degree in engineering from London South Bank University and has used that knowledge to create wild and usable vehicles of all kinds. While in college, he built the Casual Lofa, then moved on to be a special effects technician for the TV show, Father Ted. He has been on television and YouTube ever since, sharing his quirky love of the automotive world.
CTEK Co-Pilot Edd China
Famous for his Casual Lofa, a couch that can be driven, China also holds world records for the fastest toilet, bed, shed, and milk truck, along with the world's largest shopping cart. The Casual Lofa can hit top speeds of 87 mph and will be making an appearance at SEMA 2019.
When the Casual Lofa is standing still, it looks like a part of an average living room. The leopard print couch's controls are cleverly disguised as items you may have around as you relax watching TV. The steering wheel is a pizza, a can of beer is a hand brake, and the candy bar is the gear selector. You can check your speed on the alarm clock on the coffee table and signal your turns with the indicators inside of the cleverly placed flower pots.
Road to SEMA Gets to Know Edd China
As a copilot on the Road to SEMA, we wanted to get to know Edd a little better, so we asked him some questions to find out what a road trip would be like with this creative personality.
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Company | Brand |
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Name |
Edd China |
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Facebook Handle |
eddchina |
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Instagram Handle |
@theeddchina |
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What was your favorite road trip and why? |
My wife Imogen and I drove across the country from Newport Beach, CA to a Wheeler Dealers 'test drive' filming location at the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Tonopah, Nevada. It was an epic journey through the wild beauty of Death Valley, Stove Pipe Canyon, Badwater Basin (282 ft below sea level), along twenty-five miles of washboard track where we blew out the front dampers of our SUV, up to the Little A'Le'Inn Restaurant in Rachel, along the Extraterrestrial Highway where, as night fell, we had a suitably weird Area 51 moment when our car's overtake detection sensors lit up enthusiastically even though nothing was around us and we were bombing along the centre of the road at a very healthy pace. We stayed in a 'haunted' hotel in Tonopah, had a great shoot with our electric Maserati at the solar array and then sped back through yet more awesome landscapes just in time to catch a friend in concert with Above & Beyond at the Hollywood Bowl followed by an after-party in an LA speak-easy. A spectacular adventure! |
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What are your top 3 songs you must have on your road trip playlist? |
La Grange - ZZ Top |
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Who would you choose as your road trip co-pilot, alive or dead, to join you on the ultimate road trip and why? |
Leonardo Da Vinci; a true polymath, the inventor of so many things we use today including the parachute, the tank, the hang-glider, the self-propelled vehicle. It would be great to drive him around the world to show him what had become of all his inventions and discuss what he would do with all the wondrous possibilities of today's modern technology. |
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What is your favorite vehicle/bike you have owned or built? |
I loved the Lamborghini Urraco P250S I bought from the show (gutted to have to sell it) and the hundred-year-old Cadillacs from my last series but out of all the cars I have restored or built, my 21-year-old Casual Lofa sofa car has got to be my favourite as it is responsible for so many good things in my life. It's how I got into TV and habitual Guinness World Record-breaking, it's even how I met my wife. It still seems to cause a stir to this day and it's a great way to see the world. |
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What is the one vehicle/bike you wish you owned? Or what was one you owned and foolishly sold it? |
I love the cars of the 30s, so would love a Cord Pheaton, an Auburn or, if money was no object, a Duesenberg, perhaps the finest cars ever made. In the meantime, one day I would love to find my uncle's old Bentley (the first car I traveled at 100mph in), sadly sold in bits, mid-restoration, now thundering along the roads of mid-America somewhere... |
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What fueled your passion and got you into this industry? |
Probably best to just read my new book (www.greasejunkie.com/book) but in short; I love making things and solving problems. My dad was a rocket/satellite scientist and I was brought up with Lego. My first car, a Texas Yellow VW Beetle, broke down pretty much immediately after I had bought it so I quickly had to learn how cars worked and then how to fix them... and then I just had to customise them! |
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Do you have anything coming up between now & SEMA that you would like us to feature? |
We'll be driving the Casual Lofa through California and onto Las Vegas for the CTEK stand at SEMA but right now I am finishing off the world's first all-electric ice cream van, making it ready for a world record attempt and finalising the production of a kit to convert all of the soft ice cream machines in ice cream vans to run on electricity rather than the van's diesel engine. No more hydrocarbon sprinkles with your ice cream! |
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Tell us about your experience with CTEK product(s). |
Quite simply, CTEK makes the best range of intelligent battery chargers and accessories. Thanks to them my vehicles turn over the first time, every time and over the years I have been able to resurrect a fair few 'dead' car batteries too. I'm also excited to be testing their latest EV charging solutions; just in time for my electric conversion projects... |
Thank you to Edd and his Casual Lofa. Remember to submit your vehicle to be a winner in the Road to SEMA Sweepstakes.
Learn more about the Road to SEMA and the great prizes you can win. Join us on our EPIC Summer Road Trip, culminating in Las Vegas at the SEMA Show!
