This ATL Contractor Souped Up a Toy Barbie Car to Save a Fortune on Gas—And It Worked!

At a time when everything from groceries to gas prices is steadily rising to unconscionable levels, one Black man in Atlanta has seemingly found a fiscally beneficial hack to alleviate high gasoline price concerns. And trust us when we tell you, the method he came up with is almost too hilarious to be true.

Enter Malli Hightower, a man who works as a handyman and who recently used his skills and talents to figure out a workaround to shelling out so much money to fill up his tank regularly. That workaround comes in the form of a souped-up, hot pink Power Wheels Barbie Dream Camper car that he now rolls around in. Yes, you read that right—a literal Barbie Dream Camper car like the ones little girls would dream about getting for Christmas when they were younger!

Thanks to Hightower’s ingenuity, he’s now transformed the kid car into a fully functioning vehicle for adults by taking the base of a go-kart and the engine of an old power washer and finessing it into the small battery-operated vehicle, per Reuters. Now, it should be noted here that the car is only about four feet tall, which means the somewhat lengthy Hightower has to drive nearly knees-to-chest to get to and fro. But a cramped driving space may just be a good enough problem to deal with if it means saving over $80 on a gas bill.

As Hightower told the outlet, his 1996 Mercedes-Benz convertible costs him $90 to fill up his tank with the premium gas it needs, thanks to local area gas prices reaching upwards of $4 a gallon. But with his mini hot wheels, he can get a full tank for only $3-$3.50.

“Gas is getting too high, so I gotta do what I can. I can’t do the regular cars, I gotta do the little mini car,” he told CBS News recently. “Gas has always been an issue. It goes up, it goes down, things like that. But this time is when I’m actually starting to feel it.”

And Hightower’s got a point. With a new report from NBC News released on Wednesday reporting that the national average for gas is around $4.25 per gallon (thanks in large part to the war in Iran), getting creative in today’s economy in the way he did may prove to be a more financially sound decision.

And for what it’s worth, his hot car is legal to drive, so long as it doesn’t hit the highway and it can go up to 55mph. So if you were looking for ways to save at the pump, you might want to go digging through your parents’ and grandparents’ garage! If you don’t feel like doing that or don’t have the technical skills necessary to rig it up, then you might want to consider joining a wholesale club like Costco or Sam’s Club; seeking out cash discounts; getting strategic with your credit card usage, and more, per CNBC. The answer might come to you sooner than you think!