It’s Thursday. Most people spend $25,000 on a sensible vehicle. British inventor Steve Braithwaite spent his turning a pickup truck into a giant banana.

Originally from Woodstock, Oxfordshire, and now living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Braithwaite spent more than two years bringing his fruity vision to life. The result is the Big Banana Car, a 23-foot-long, 10-foot-tall rolling piece of produce powered by a 302ci Ford V8. Despite looking like something that escaped from a grocery store, the banana can reach speeds of up to 85 mph.

The idea first peeled its way into Braithwaite’s mind back in 2009, and since then the giant banana has racked up more than 250,000 miles while attracting attention everywhere it goes. Especially from police officers.

“I would see a police car going the other way and get my documents ready,” Braithwaite said. “I knew they were going to loop around and pull me over.”

After 15 years behind the wheel of the world’s most conspicuous fruit, he’s learned that driving a giant banana is basically an open invitation for roadside conversations. According to Braithwaite, officers always seem to find a reason to stop him.

His latest encounter was sparked by a question about the license plate, but after taking a closer look, officers ultimately sent him on his way without a ticket. Just another day in the life of a man piloting a giant potassium joke down America’s highways.

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It’s Wednesday. A friend of mine sent in this photo featured today. Wilsford Cum Lake is the kind of place that causes every grown adult to instantly revert to a 13-year-old. You can just imagine the local tourism board desperately trying to promote the area’s scenic beauty while visitors are too busy giggling at the road sign. “Welcome to Wilsford Cum Lake” sounds less like a charming village and more like a bad 70s porn video. Even the instruction to “Please drive carefully” feels loaded with meaning, as if previous visitors got a little too excited upon arrival. Somewhere in Wiltshire, England, a poor historian is explaining the perfectly innocent origins of the name while an entire parking lot of tourists are taking suggestive selfies by the sign and sending them off to friends saying, “Guess where I just came from!”

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It’s Tuesday. The automotive community took a gut punch last week when an EF3 tornado tore through Effingham, Illinois, and scored a direct hit on the campus of Mid America Motorworks. The June 17 storm packed winds estimated at up to 150 mph and left a trail of destruction more than 26 miles long. According to company officials, the damage was catastrophic, with the corporate headquarters, museum, outbuildings, inventory, and computer systems either destroyed or severely damaged. Thankfully, no employees were injured, but the physical losses are being described as devastating.

For Corvette enthusiasts, the loss goes far beyond bricks and mortar. Mid America Motorworks wasn’t just a parts supplier—it was a destination. The company’s MY Garage Museum housed an incredible collection of rare and historically significant Corvettes, prototypes, Volkswagens, and automotive memorabilia collected over decades. Early reports indicate that many of those irreplaceable vehicles were damaged or destroyed when the tornado flattened the museum. The annual Volkswagen Funfest has already been canceled, and while the road to recovery will be long, the Corvette and Volkswagen communities have rallied around the Yager family and the company they built from a small operation selling Corvette parts out of the trunk of a car into one of the most recognizable names in the hobby.

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Mid America Motorworks, the Corvette and Porsche parts giant that’s been a fixture of the hobby since the 1970s, says its buildings “sustained catastrophic damage after being in the direct path of a tornado” that tore across northern Effingham County on the evening of June 17, 2026. In a statement posted to Facebook, the company said all of its team members are safe and no injuries were reported on site — the one piece of genuinely good news in an otherwise grim update.

The wider picture in Effingham County was serious. According to the Effingham County Emergency Management Agency, the first damage reports came in around 8 p.m. near Beecher City, and the tornado traveled an estimated 12 to 15 miles east-southeast, with the worst destruction running from west of Shumway to south of Montrose. Officials reported fewer than five people transported to the hospital and, critically, no fatalities and no injuries described as life-threatening. By Thursday, the county had issued a formal disaster proclamation to free up resources for the recovery.

For the car world, the loss lands differently than your average commercial property hit. Founded by Mike Yager, Mid America Motorworks isn’t just a warehouse and a call center — it’s a destination. The campus is home to a Corvette and Porsche museum, hosts the long-running Funfest gatherings, and functions as a kind of pilgrimage site for owners who plan road trips around it. Several enthusiasts online reported that significant pieces of automotive history were caught in the storm’s path, including unconfirmed claims that the last C4 Corvette ever built was among the cars damaged.

The response from the Corvette community was immediate. Within hours, the company’s posts filled with hundreds of comments from owners, clubs, and longtime customers — many of them recalling visits, Funfest weekends, and decades of orders. “The damage looks devastating but really glad no one was injured,” wrote one commenter who said he’d visited the operation back in the late 1970s when it was still tiny, adding that he knew it could rebuild. Others, like the crew at Vette Registry, struck a similar tone, calling themselves “heartbroken” while pledging to start buying products again the moment the company is back up and running. More than a few comments asked the same practical question: when a GoFundMe goes live, where do they sign up?

Company founder Mike Yager, a familiar face to anyone who’s flipped through a Corvette catalog over the past few decades, posted a brief video update to followers Thursday. The company says it will share more as it works through the recovery process. For now, the message from Effingham is the one that matters most after a night like this: the buildings can be rebuilt, and everyone walked away.