More than ever, this might be the summer season to get the maximum enjoyment out of your own yard or patio space.
These VW bus grills from Trash Metal Fabrications stoke up excitement for tasty cooking, keeping cozy around a nighttime fire, and maybe even imagining future travels when it’s safer to go places.
Plus, the mini VW campers are adorable and hearken back to hippie days when Volkswagen Type 2’s were all the rage.
Take a look. The company has posted some of their creations to their Facebook page:
As Trash Metal Fabrications’ owner Danny Lyons says, “It is definitely the time of year to be in the garden chilling out with a beer, bit of music and a fired-up wood burner.”
Lyons welds recycled metal into these VW beauties. He sandblasts them and either coats them in lacquer or high heat-resistant paint. They have custom license plate lettering, too, and the racks on top serve as the grill grates.
These aren’t mass-produced. Since Lyons spends a good deal of time making each, they cost about $290-353 and usually take four weeks to make.
Here’s a trio of his wood-burning creations before painting.
As you can see, Lyons also makes “Star Wars”-themed grills and many custom offerings like trains, cars, “Despicable Me” Minions and “Doctor Who” Daleks.
Lyons noted in a Feb. 6, 2020, Facebook post that his business really started out as a “weird hobby.”
“Just over 4 years ago, I was bored at work so I decided to make a BBQ out of a [sic] old 45-gallon steel drum that I had found in the street outside of the workshop I was at,” he wrote. “Then I found a couple of old air compressor tanks and thought ‘There’s a Darth Vader wood burner in that somewhere.'”
“Then I thought ‘that other one must be an VW camper van wood burner too,'” Lyons added. Once he started a Facebook page for his new business and collected enough metal scrap from around his area of Lancashire, England, things began to take off.
Since Trash Metal Fabrications is based in the U.K., U.S. residents might want to look closer to home to save on the shipping.
For instance, My Distressed Mess has a VW bus grill/fire pit on offer over on Etsy for $400 along with other custom grills, which are made in Montana.
Also on Etsy, Nashville Metal Art makes a collapsible VW bug grill/fire pit for $203.99.
These creative firepit/wood burner/grills might make you want to sit outside around a roaring fire long past summer.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
