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Wooden car with motorcycle engine created in Nigeria, not Kenya

A photo circulating on Facebook shows a man sitting in a car that seems to be made from wood. Some claim the car was made in Kenya.

“Man from Nyeri, Kenya builds car with wood & Motorcycle engine,” reads one caption to the photo. “This guy will make you feel proud to be an African... Show this genius some love.”

Another says: “Nyeri man builds car with wood and motorcycle engine.” The photo has been posted elsewhere on Facebook with the same claim.

Nyeri is a town on Kenya’s central highlands. But did a man from Nyeri really build the wooden car shown in the photo?

CarBuilt_Incorrect

Piece of genius by Nigerian man

Africa Check did a reverse image search of the image and found it in an article on Legit, a Nigeria-based website, with the headline “Nigerian constructs a car with wood and motorcycle engine.”

The article is dated 4 March 2016 and shows three different photos of the car.

“A young talented Nigerian man has created a wonderful piece of automobile design,” it reads. “The man from Bida, Niger state, said that he made his car using only pieces of wood and a motorcycle engine.”

Africa Check entered the article’s headline into a YouTube search, which returned a video titled “Convertible wooden car built by a Nigerian can manage fuel.” It was posted on Pulse Nigeria channel in October 2016.

The video identifies the car’s creator as Ahmed Aliyu from Niger state. Its description links to another article, on the Pulse Nigeria website, with a photo similar to the one in the Facebook claim.

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