Ralf, Sabine and Marco Mierzowski (left to right) from Espelkamp with their white double door Burton, which contains the chassis and engine of a duck, built in 1986.

Pictured is Martin Nobbe Ralf, Sabine and Marco Mierzowski (from left) from Espelkamp with their white double-door Burton, which includes the chassis and engine of a 1986 duck Friends soon got the message that everything at the Mierzowskis revolves around son Marco and ducks. And so it happened in a way that shouldn't have happened at all. The couple got an old duck from a friend. "That was a real rust bump that had grown under an apple tree in his garden for years," says Ralf Mierzowski. According to the motto "you do not look into the mouth of a gift horse", the rusty baby family liked to take care of itself. Kit ordered "Actually, the gift had to be put back into shape on four wheels," says Ralf Mierzowski. But son Marco, then 16, vetoed it.

He had read in a magazine that there was a company in the Netherlands that did. With this Marco made his father, a trained mechanical engineer, curious and contacted the company directly, after which the Espelkamper, based on their own ideas, picked out a kit via a catalogue and ordered it three years ago after paying an advance. Meanwhile, the family had been working from home and disassembled the battered duck in its loose parts and shaped the chassis. "It's been a long time," Ralf Mierzowski says, laughing at the thought.

For four years, the Mierzowskis only tinkered with the duck's chassis in their spare time. And when the kit then rolled into Espelkamp, it took another two years for the one-time four-wheeled kit to finally finish. Eye-catcher But with that, the neat "racer", whose inertia cannot be seen, was not yet approved by the TÜV. The Burton with the number 1240 stood alone in Hamburg for three weeks before the homemade vehicle was approved by the inspectors there. That was two years ago. Since then, the car has been causing a stir in the streets of Espelkamp and its surroundings. Because at first glance you can't see that this "winged duck" from 2018 is slow. A second look will reveal it.

A Citroën 2CV engine with 27 hp, two cylinders, 600 cubic centimeters and a top speed of 130 km / h slumbers under the hood. The duck base on which the Burton now rolls dates back to 1986. With their first green duck, the couple drives their caravans to the world meetings of duck owners every year. "Our duck runs and runs and has never let us down. Not even on our longest journey, some 2000 kilometers, to the world meeting in Spain. "