WACKY WEDNESDAY | A Violin Made Entirely from Car Parts

Paddy Moran from County Mayo, Ireland, crafted this violin in 1972 from parts of an old Ford Anglia

Small-town Irish fiddler, Paddy Moran, had a go at making his own violin from various materials he had lying around — and the result is excellent!

According to Moran, the bottom of the violin is crafted from melted-down tin from old tin cans, while the top piece of the instrument was once an old car. Moran says he initially tried to make the entire instrument from tin, but that this approach did not work because the material was warping too much. Once he added the old car metal to the top of the violin, Moran found that it held its shape much better.

Moran was humble about the instrument's capabilities, saying that its tone was a little soft, but interviewer Frank Hall disagreed, saying that the violin's sound was "extremely agreeable altogether."

The violin seems to be tuned about a tone lower than A440, and has a sweeter, softer tone color than a wooden instrument.

When asked whether he had ever played a first-class violin, Moran claimed he had once played a real Stradivarius owned by his friend Martin Ruane.

Moran finishes the clip with a short rendition of a reel called "Dinny O'Brien's Favorite," which he says he learned by ear from listening to the radio.

This archival footage is excerpted from "Hall's Pictorial Weekly," a comic and sometimes satirical TV show in which host Frank Hall aimed to uncover the eccentricities and delights to be found in far-flung areas of provincial Ireland. The show ran from 1971 until 1980.

"I have an inexhaustible interest in the lives and times of the people who live in our country towns and villages," Hall said of the show. "No event is too small to capture my attention, no community too out of the way... this programme is intended to be about you, your town, your friends, your local interests."