There was a guy featured on the news here (NZ) a wee while back. He was running a Trademe auction for a motorised sofa and for some reason he had attracted the attention of the media. Anyways they are interviewing him in his workshop and he turns out to be completely mad mechanical engineer.
Lurking in the back of his workshop was a John Deere mini tractor/ride on mower complete with turboed gixxer 1100 motor. Excellent for scaring the neighbours on a Sunday morning.