Designer, aviator and three-time USSR karting champion Imants Šleiters – he as Latvian Academy of Arts (LMA) student made his own car in 1974.
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Imants has been interested in cars since childhood, as well as in drawing and construction, especially aircraft models. Since flying is in his genes, Imants started to calculate the wing profiles of airplanes early on and later also flew to an aviation sports club.
When flying was no longer possible due to ideological differences, Imants joined the Latvian karting movement and joined the Young Technicians’ Station, where Teodors Liepa, Jānis Lapiņš and others had started building go-karts. Over the years, the designer’s talent and good mechanic gave Imants Schleiter three titles in karting in the USSR, five in Latvia and four in the Baltics.
LMA Imants entered the age of 35, when he was already working in the factory design office. His friend, a LMA lecturer, praised his design talent and suggested studying at the academy. So the prospective student spent a summer learning to draw by the sea in order to keep his dignity in his eyes, and entered the academy. As he approached his thesis, he decided to create something that no one had done before – to build his own car.
As a result, the wooden shape of the fiberglass body became a low and aerodynamic engine with a 1000 cc engine – in line with the requirements of the self-built car of the time. 200 liters of resin were used in the car construction process, and the car with a saw was cut out of shape. It took help to take Imanta’s diploma thesis to the second floor of the Latvian Academy of Arts, but the teachers confirmed that he would have received the test only for the panel.
Imants sold his car, but two more identical cars were created from the mold, the location of which was unknown for a long time. Agris Šmits, the deputy head of the Riga Motor Museum, says that the car museum came to one of these cars by accident – they learned about what Imants had done from their colleagues, and the search for a unique vehicle took them from Texas to Liepāja scrap site. There, an interested passer-by watched it and was ready to sell it to the museum.
At the age of 88, Imants Šleiters is still working, designing cars and throwing adventures. He was still behind the wheel of a go-kart last summer, but made his first flight after a break of 60 years on his 80th birthday, steering the glider.
Broadcasting »Speed tribe“offered by the portal” Delfi “in cooperation with” LMT Smart Television “.
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