{"id":2043954,"date":"2026-07-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2043954"},"modified":"2026-07-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T21:00:00","slug":"step-inside-the-most-ambitious-project-yet-from-britains-wackiest-inventor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2043954","title":{"rendered":"Step inside the most ambitious project yet from Britain’s wackiest inventor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My morning at Colin Furze\u2019s perfectly normal semi-detached three-bed starts… normally. He brews me a sturdy cuppa, bemoans the price of steel pinching his home improvement budget, and shows me into his workshop. To the floor hatch.<\/p>\n

Onto the ladder, descending below the gardens of suburban Lincolnshire. Along the (perfectly dry, neatly carpeted) tunnel, to his homebuilt bank vault door. And into the whopping hangar he\u2019s excavated under his driveway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nothing\u2019s normal any more. My forgotten tea goes cold as Colin \u2013 a pioneer YouTuber with over 13 million subscribers following his bizarre engineering ideas and mad homebrew inventions \u2013 talks me through how you get planning permission for a Bond villain lair.<\/p>\n

Photography: Tom Barnes<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe council see something on the internet and they ring me<\/em> up, which I\u2019ve always argued is easier than trying to ring the council for permission \u2013 you\u2019ll be on hold for ages. Now they just ring me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Having antics spotted online is a big part of the Furze origin story. Namely the time the police called him while he was at his day job, plumbing, and asked for \u2018a word\u2019 concerning the moped he\u2019d equipped with a flamethrower and posted a clip of.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey rang me at work and I said, \u2018I\u2019ve got somebody\u2019s water off! I can\u2019t come at the minute.\u2019 The second the phone went down I went bombing home in the van because I thought \u2018it\u2019s about the bloody moped\u2019. I was going to rush back here and take the flamethrower off the back of it. But they turned up literally as I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe policeman asked me, \u2018Have you got a firearms license?\u2019 \u2018No.\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re not allowed flamethrowers,\u2019 he said. \u2018They\u2019re prohibited weapons \u2013 only the army can have \u2019em.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they took me to the police station, put me through the system and let me go on a caution. Then there\u2019s a three-week wait before the Crown Prosecution Service decide whether to charge you. And the police just said to the CPS, \u2018look, we know who this guy is. He does this sort of stuff \u2013 don\u2019t worry about it.\u2019 When I went back, they were a little more chilled.\u201d So chilled that when Colin went to collect his confiscated moped from the police impound three weeks later… the offending flamethrower was still attached.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not all of Colin\u2019s creations are lethal weapons. Over two decades of YouTubing he\u2019s dreamt up magnetic boots for walking on his workshop\u2019s ceiling, a two stroke-engined lamp, a jet-powered go-kart and scooter, a 360\u00b0 swing that stood taller than his house, and a stair-mounted travelator designed to offer the world\u2019s most intense treadmill experience without having to sign up to a gym. He\u2019s held world records for the fastest dodgem, fastest mobility scooter, and built a gadget-laden Bond car out of a BMW Z3.<\/p>\n

During COVID, he adhered to the government\u2019s two-metre social distancing rules by building a \u2018highcycle\u2019 which could be ridden from two metres in the air. So where did this maverick need to build the impossible sprout from?<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up I was hooked on watching anything that had inventions in it \u2013 Back To The Future<\/em>, Goonies<\/em>, things like that. My eyes were on stalks.\u201d He was also interested in how the local travelling fairground constructed rides, and taking risks on his BMX. That natural interest in fixing stuff originally led to plumbing, but laid the groundwork for Colin to start \u201cmucking about\u201d on YouTube only a year after the site launched.<\/p>\n

How\u2019s producing videos for a laugh changed in 20 years? \u201cProduction values have all gone up,\u201d he grimaces. \u201cThe original YouTube was a lot simpler. I mean, I haven\u2019t changed much. I just try to think of a cool idea. I still don\u2019t use radio mics or anything because I can\u2019t be arsed with checking the batteries \u2013 I still shoot and edit everything myself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Has he ever invented anything that failed? \u201cThere was one: this automatic bacon cooking machine. It had little rollers that got hot. The bacon would go through the rollers and come out cooked… but sometimes the bacon would just stick to the rollers, get all mangled up… then it set itself on fire. Back then I never had any CNC plasma cutters or 3D printers. I think if I have another crack at that, I probably would make a better job of it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his uniform being a short sleeve shirt and tie with no safety equipment whatsoever, Colin\u2019s only suffered one major injury in his inventing career. Naturally, there\u2019s a video. \u201cIt\u2019s called Getting Burnt, Popping Blisters And Peeling Off My Own Skin<\/em>,\u201d he reminisces cheerfully. \u201cIt\u2019s age restricted as you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He giggles as he recounts the lucky escape. \u201cSo I\u2019d made a jet engine out of a Transit van turbo fuelled from a gas bottle. The combustion chamber was a toilet brush tube and a toilet roll holder, which was like sort of siliconed together and held with a chain. The oil system was me just pouring oil in the top, catching it at the bottom, just recirculating it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Mines<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019d gone in for a cup of tea, come back out and forgot I hadn\u2019t tightened the nut up on the gas bottle. So I was sitting here trying to get it started and of course it was leaking gas, then all of a sudden a spark shot out the back and it just went booooooooofff<\/em>. Literally blew the workshop doors open.\u201d I\u2019ll spare you the more grizzly details, but as he proudly shows off, there\u2019s surprisingly little scarring.<\/p>\n

When the underground garage is complete, it\u2019ll feature a rotating car lift for carrying Colin\u2019s DeLorean to ground level, while the tunnel that leads into the house will be extended beneath the garden to connect with the secret bunker lounge beneath his shed. \u201cWhen we have a heatwave it stays nice and cool down here,\u201d Colin says as we continue the tour. Not for long, after he\u2019s demonstrated his flame-spewing electric guitar.<\/p>\n

With all this hidden real estate, I have to ask: Is this uniquely Furze\u2019d property now unsellable? \u201cEverybody wants to know what it\u2019s worth,\u201d he laughs. \u201cPeople say to me, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s worth millions now\u2019 and I say, \u2018If you had a million quid to spend on a house, would you buy one that from the surface looks like it\u2019s worth 300 or 400 grand?\u2019 The whole point is that it looks like a totally normal house, but there\u2019s so much more underneath…\u201d<\/p>\n

And yes, the neighbours are roundly supportive of having a YouTube icon building military grade fun and games next door. I mean, if they ever got cheesed off, there\u2019s no palaver trying to prove what he\u2019s up to. Just send a YouTube link to the usual address.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My morning at Colin Furze\u2019s perfectly normal semi-detached three-bed starts… normally. He brews me a sturdy cuppa, bemoans the price of steel pinching his home improvement budget, and shows me into his workshop. To the floor hatch. Onto the ladder, descending below the gardens of suburban Lincolnshire. Along the (perfectly dry, neatly carpeted) tunnel, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2043954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2043954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2043954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2043954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2043954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}