“Gas Is Getting Too High”: Man Converts Barbie Dream Car Into Working Vehicle

A man living on the outskirts of Atlanta, Ga., is going viral online after he decided to convert a toy pink Barbie Dream Car into a mini car he can use to get around locally. A video of the man traveling around in this unique mode of transportation was shared on X by user @WallStreetApes, and people just can’t believe what they’re seeing. Many users questioned how and why he modified the toy car into a vehicle he could actually drive.

How Rising Fuel Costs Inspired His Unusual Vehicle

The man’s story went so viral that CBS Evening News caught wind of it and tracked him down to find out what drove him to create something like this. And they got answers. His name is Mali Hightower, and he’s a 30-year-old handyman who lives near Atlanta. He told the news outlet he created what he described as a “mini car.” For it, he used a pink Barbie car as the structure of the vehicle and added a go-kart base and an old power washer to power the vehicle.

While being interviewed and stopping at a gas station to add $1 worth of gas to his pump, Hightower told CBS Evening News, “Gas is getting too high so I gotta do what I can. I can’t do my regular car so I gotta do my mini car.”

The modified Barbie car only costs about $3 to fill up, compared to the roughly $60 he normally spends on his minivan. Although he can’t fit his kids in the mini Barbie car, he did install a rack to hold groceries. He said local police have been understanding as long as he stays off highways, since the mini car clearly isn’t equipped for that level of driving.

He continued to explain, “Gas has always been an issue, it goes up and down, things like that, but this time is when I’m actually starting to feel it.” While many people were genuinely surprised by what Hightower created, others users in the thread pointed out “how far we’ve fallen as a country”. One commenter wrote, “Used to be even a poor man could have a beater car. Now we have to rig up makeshift jalopies out of junk. Depression era indicator.”

Others, however, focused on his positive attitude and credited him for “beating the system.”

Another commenter wrote, “Peak American ingenuity mixed with maximum troll energy.” They added that turning a Barbie Dream Car into a functional vehicle with a power washer engine was “absolute legend behavior,” and said the police being okay with the vehicle as long as he stays off the highway was “the cherry on top.”