Colin Furze

Submission 34,250

About

Colin Furze is an English plumber and YouTube vlogger best known for his eccentric mechanical inventions and stunts involving pyrotechnics and custom-modified vehicles, most notably the famous jet-powered bicycle which has been dubbed the “most dangerous unsafe bike.”

Online History

Colin Furze, a plumber and inventor from Stamford, England, created his self titled YouTube channel^[2] on November, 15th, 2006. He uploaded his first video on February 5th, 2007, which features Furze dressed as Mr. Blobby, a character from the British television show Noel's House Party, jumping onto a row of shopping carts a worker was leading through a parking lot.

Early Stunts

During his early years of vlogging, Furze established an online following with a series of extreme stunts and public pranks, such as going through a car wash station with no windows and staging the world's biggest bonfire (shown below).

Wall of Death

On September 21st, 2007, Furze uploaded one of his first construction-themed videos titled "Wall of Death," which shows the vlogger building a vertical-circular racetrack to test drive his scooter. As of June 2014, the video has garnered more than 750,000 views on YouTube.

The JET Bicycle

On June 6th, 2013, Furze uploaded a video titled “The JET Bicycle – The most dangerous unsafe bikeEVER," which shows him riding a bicycle outfitted with two flame throwing jets and reaching a maximum speed of 50 mph. The video was covered by many websites including The Telegraph^[4], The Daily Mail^[5] and The Huffington Post UK.^[6] As of June 2014, the video has gained over 6.2 million views.

X-Men Powers

On April 15th, 2014, Furze announced (below, left) that he would be uploading a series of videos in May in which he created inventions to mimic some of the powers of the X-Men characters from the Marvel universe. On May 15th, he uploaded his first video in the series titled “DIY X-MEN Making WOLVERINES CLAWS,” (below, right) which shows how he created retractable metal claws. As of June 2014, the video has gained over 470,000 views.

Over the course of the month Furze uploaded seven videos, including three X-Men projects (Wolverine claws, Pyro flame throwers, and Magnito ceiling shoes) and four behind the scenes prep-videos. As of June 2014, the most watched video in the series is titled "DIY X-MEN WOLVERINE fully automatic claws," (below, left) which was uploaded on May 15th, and has gained over 4.6 million views. The second highest viewed video is titled "DIY X-MEN MAGNETO walking upside down with magnetic shoes," which was uploaded on May 22nd, 2014, and has gained over 1.4 million views.

The series was covered by several websites including Metro^[7], The Huffington Post^[8] and TechCrunch.^[9]

Reputations

As of June 2014, Furze's YouTube Channel^[2] has over 440,000 subscribers. His official Twitter account^[1] has over 2,000 followers and his Facebook page^[3] has gained over 10,000 likes.

Notable Examples

Some of the most notable inventions presented by Furze include vacuum-powered shoes (below, top left), a jet engine BBQ (top right), the world's fastest pram (bottom left) and a jet powered snow blower (bottom right). Other inventions include a speedy motorized scooter and a jet powered kettle.

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