Cambodian Car

It is flat and smooth, and on the top of it, there is a sculpture of Angkor Wat temple. If not being told, perhaps no one could possibly imagine that this is a car key.

This car key looks physically very simple and therefore it is very easy be cloned. However, if the cloned key is used instead of the original one to ignite the car, there is a sound spoken immediately that “you cannot use the car, please try again.”

The echo is made by a golden Cambodian car, Angkor 333.

“Ouch! Please take good care of me; I’m hurting,” is another sound spoken by the car when someone hits the seat.

“It speaks other sentences when you close the door so strongly,” said Nhean Phaloek, the 51-year-old car inventor, proudly claiming that this is his third homemade car but the first to talk and what makes it mainly different from other cars is that it is controlled telepathically.

“Within 5 meters, I just snap my finger or think of opening the car’s door, the door will open immediately,” he said, adding that no one could use this car beside him.

This specialty has drawn people’s attentions nationally and internationally. And so far, there have been a lot of local and international media companies coming to interview him, he said.

“CNN, AFP, AP, NHK, TVK, CTN, The Cambodia Daily and many others have already come to ask me about my new car,” said the inventor.

“Most of them said that it was unbelievable that I manage to create such a special car because I haven’t had any proper education and there aren’t any car industries in Cambodia,” he added.

Nhean Phaloek has only finished grade 1 in the old education system, equally referring to grade 12 in the present system. After finishing school, he became a motorbike mechanic.

Then, he started having an idea of inventing his own car for use and said, “I do not want Cambodian people to use other countries’ products [cars] from one generation to another.”

With talent and great effort in doing research in addition to the mechanical skill, he successfully gave birth to his first car in 2006, operating on motorbike machine.

In 2007, the second generation of his car came to existence, updating the old one by equipping with air-conditioner.

22 months later, he has successfully invented the third car, the telepathic car to talk.

It costs him $5,000 to invent the latest car, he said, continuing that he will not sell it but will keep for showing his accomplishment.

Kong Pharith, a 48-year-old former mathematics and physics teacher, has also successfully created his own car – a “tribrid” car operating on solar energy, electricity and gasoline.

He has come to talk to Mr. Phaloek to combine their knowledge to create a new telepathic car operated on solar energy. However, Mr. Phaloek has denied cooperating, explaining that “solar energy is used effectively with only big car but not small cars like his.”

Nhean Phaloek has not sastified with his achievement yet. He said with hope that he will continue doing research so as to upgrade his car.

“In the future, I want to invent an automatically ignited car whose steeling wheel will mechanically come outward when the driver is in the car; and come inward when the driver is out the car,” he said, adding that the car will automatically close its doors and stop its engine, as well.

“The fourth generation of my car will be one operated on wind power,” he said.

By Veng Rachana