These 5 fans made their own Tesla Cybertruck replicas

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Elon Musk has a penchant for creating a stir with — well, basically everything he does, but especially when it comes to his revolutionary electric car company, Tesla.

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Already known for challenging the status quo with its fully electric automobiles, Tesla went more than a few steps further with the 2019 introduction of its angular Cybertruck.

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These 5 fans made their own Tesla Cybertruck replicas Back to video

Months on, not much is known about the vehicle, except that it looks like it came out of a PlayStation One video game; that it’s made of stainless steel; and that it has an electric powertrain.

Some diehard fans just couldn’t sit on their thumbs, eagerly lapping up new info about the Cybertruck as it dribbled out of Musk’s Twitter feed, though, and instead decided to build their own copies of the thing based on what they did know.

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While most got the visuals correct, a lot still struggled with nailing down that electric powertrain — just like real car manufacturers are today.

Here are the top five knock-off fan-built Cybertrucks.

The Russian Replica

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If you’re going to build a vehicle replica and you live in Russia, what better donor to start with than a Lada? (Also, what other vehicles are there in Russia?)

YouTube channel Pushka Garazh was likely the first to build a Cybertruck replica, and it looks pretty good, as far as homebrew attempts to. The body is made of mild steel and the truck retains its original Lada powerplant, but if that recipe left you with any doubts, they prove by video’s end that it’s a running, driving, vehicle.

What else do you do with a Cybertruck replica? Drift it, of course! Which the builders do, until the hubcaps fall off.

The Mini-Me Cybertruck

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The folks at Hacksmith looked at the Cybertruck and saw a challenge: could we try and make our own before Elon could finish his? Except for the scale , the Hacksmith’s vehicle is the closest any copy has gotten to the real deal.

Featuring actual stainless steel bodywork and an electric powertrain sourced from a golf kart, if you saw it in person, you might just think it was a Tesla that was really far away. The channel’s even planning to take on that now-iconic Tesla stunt and attempt to pull a Ford F-150 behind the pint-sized model.

Garage 54’s Gonzo Build

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Using a vintage UAZ truck as the base for its build, Garage 54 assembled a Tesla Cybertruck that’s essentially feature-complete. Bearing an almost uncanny resemblance to the real thing, Garage 54’s Cybertruck gets every detail right, even down to the wacky wheel design.

Although on the inside it’s really just an old Russian truck and doesn’t feature any kind of revolutionary electric powertrain, we have to give the guys at Garage 54 real kudos for building this ridiculous thing.

The Dressed-Up Ford F-150

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Maybe you want a Cybertruck but don’t wanna pay the wild price Tesla wants to sell them for. Maybe you don’t even want to pay any money for it, like YouTuber airrack. It’s why he decided to build his own out of cardboard and spray paint, anyway.

Without a truck to start the conversion with, airrack rented a Ford F-150, and proceeded to raid the Home Depot for free cardboard and silver spray paint. In the end, he decided to take his creation to a Tesla outlet to show it off and see how people reacted to it.

The Chinese Cybertruck Copycat

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YouTubers MakerBeta might have had the most ambitious build of them all: make a full-sized, driveable Cybertruck replica in what looks to be the parking garage of an apartment building. To build the truck, they took a JinBei van and completely rearranged its components, removing the body and lengthening the wheelbase.

Compared to all the other replicas, this one seems the most complete, with working doors and windows, as well as accurate headlights and taillights. The scale is also really close, albeit with a slightly chopped roofline. Even the “Cybertruk” script was copied for the licence plate.

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