Man drives half-boat, half-car hybrid

MELROSE, Mass. (CNN/WHDH) - A peculiar-looking vehicle is making waves around Melrose, Mass. It looks like a boat. It sounds like a boat. But actually, it is a car.

"It's 110 percent legal. It's a pickup truck in a Halloween costume, basically. I use it for everything," said Ron Kilroe, creator of his own homemade hybrid vehicle.

About ten years ago, Kilroe's truck began to rot, and then he saw his pickup truck next to his boat in the driveway and came up with a crazy idea: a "car-boat."

"The whole idea was to make as much like a boat as I possibly could," he explained. "So you just climb up the back of it, the same as you would a real boat. Everything is the same as if it was a real boat. The only thing that's different is that it has the original dashboard from the truck. So, it has through-haul exhaust. Instead of just coming out of the muffler, they actually are the same thing as what's on the big boat."

The vehicle started off looking identical to a pickup truck, and after only three days of 16 hours of work, it became Kilroe's "car-boat."

Getting it inspected was the hardest part. Coming up with the name, well, that was easy: the "Don't Float."

"That's the first thing everybody asks me, 'Does it float?' So, I put it on here. Nope. Don't Float," said Kilroe.

But it does drive like a dream, turning heads of folks who see it driving down the road, including one who believed it was an actual boat on the highway.

"Everybody likes it. That's what I like about it. It doesn't offend anybody," said Nicole Oliverio.

So why is this "car-boat" suddenly so popular after ten years? You can thank the Internet for that. Kilroe says pictures are all over Facebook , but since he doesn't have an account, he's only heard about it.