It’s been an exciting journey to take Catbus from v1 (a bamboo constructed, 4-person costume) to v3 – a 4-wheeled vehicle that can take 2-3 passengers. Think Flintstones bus meets shopping trolley! (v2 was intended to be a hand-pulled 2 wheel rickshaw, but it failed our safety tests.)

Adam has done a brilliant job of engineering the new chassis and I’m really glad to say that the skinsuit still fits pretty well. The rear frame is more-or-less complete – we have wheels, we have a seat, we have an overly-complicated frame and a linkage to wag the tail. We did some dodgy calculations to work out the best position for the wheels so it will not overbalance (we hope) and last but not least, we found some bench cushions which fit almost perfectly. We’ve done some reworking of his head and eyes so they can be lit up, have added new skirts front and back (he’s taller now!) and have made improvements to his tail.

Many thanks to Bruce, Dale & Alex for the assistance with welding and building and to Pippa for help with her industrial sewing machine!