..”Baby D..JD1″

By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin

The sporty-looking car, looks like a Lamborghini but is branded “Baby D…JD1” . It was manufactured in Ganmo, a rustic town on the outskirts of Ilorin in Ifelodun local government area of Kwara state.

Engineer Bola Bolarin, the CEO/ Project Lead of XtreMechanics told Demola Akinyemi of Saturday Vanguard that the project was conceptualised early in 2021, so it took about two years to complete the car.
“The future of Nigeria is in Kwara because good things are coming out of Kwara” enthused Engr Bolarin also a Kwaran who did his Engineering course in University of Ilorin and veered into Energy sector.

“I studied in the university of ilorin and also worked In the energy sector for 23 years in Port Harcourt. I’ve also worked within and outside the country as an expert,” he said.

Xtreme Mechanics occupies the entire third floor of the BOA six storey building in Ganmo. After the interview the engineer kickstarted “Baby D…JD1” and it roared and he drove the sporty car, he plans to launch soon.

Speaking about how the project came into being, he said “We started the project in May 2021 and this is not what we started with, in fact this is actually version 3. At one stage we tore it down because it wasn’t what we wanted, we want the product to be internationally competitive and something that is unique. So in 2022, when ferarri launched their car for that year, we tried to build something similar.”

Engr Bolarin is in his late 60s. He has three young men who teamed up with him, one a serving NYSC member, while two others are NYSC members he converted to staff. He said he sourced the materials and other components of the car from Lagos and Kwara.

“It’s difficult, most of them are locally made, we picked up some few stuffs in the metal market, we went to surulere to pick up the metal, but they are not the exact metal we want, we picked up some from Lagos, some are not available so we manufactured them ourselves.

“ The major part which is fiber glass is a composite material, we got it from Lagos, my wish also is that Nigerian glass companies like the one in Delta can be manufacturing fiber glass. If that is done, it will be cheaper and easily accessible.”

”When you talk of a Laborghini, Buggatti, it’s made of carbon fiber and you wonder if there’s a future. I’m sure you’ve heard of Tesla, 30% of the materials used in building Tesla is made of carbon fiber and fiber glass. Even BMW, Volkswagen are all made of this carbon fiber because it gives weight reduction.”

For the Car to be reproduced he said ,”we are working below the budget, but the real issue is that we want to set people thinking, so that when they see this product, they’ll know these things can be done in Nigeria then you start wondering and thinking about possibilities. This same fiber glass is used for those trucks that have long heads, that stuff is made of fibreglass, so in short, with these fibreglass materials, you can produce a regular car, in fact we can make a replica of any kind of car.”

Engr Bolarin however said he’ll need 250 Million US Dollars to establish an efficient and productive automobile factory that can reproduce any car in Kwara state.

When asked how the 250 million USD would used he said,” Infrastructured, equipment, salaries, running costs and all that and that’s a combination of what we intend to do because we need to set a factory line and it will involve a lot, Research and development.”

He’s also looking forward to any quarters.

“Infrastructure is one, Two if the government has an interest in developing skills, we can partner and also if the government wants to project things that are coming out of Kwara, we can be the billboard plug, “ he said.
He also said that working in a business environment in a place like Kwara state has its own advantages too.

“The investment climate is conducive, we have an incentive for start-ups and the cost of living is low and just like any other place in the country, we have a pool of youths that are eager to prove themselves so it’s a combination of those factors that can propel what we have in mind.

Why Kwara?

“I want to have fun in my retirement and also I want to enlighten the youths and bring out the creativity In them.
“Also, I want to democratize new and emerging technology most people feel can only be done outside the country and most importantly to make youths the front runners of this project and show that there’s no limitation to what they can achieve.”

Continuing he said,” Everything we do here is self-funded, it’s my personal money, we also do get jobs in Kwara here, we train people, we also do 3D printing for those who are into research, so these are our major sources of income, but still, the knowledge, the penetration, the adoption of the technology is very very low. However, it’s the future that matters.”