The didicar Invention Story
Coming from a rural upbringing in the
Far East, the Inventor's background is an agricultural one. Farms in the area
where he grew up are not usually large but smaller independent farms. This was
the case with the Inventor's family who had a small farm. This was a typical
small farm with a small arable plot and a mixture of basic farm animals,
chickens, a cow and some pigs.
In 1999 the family’s pig had a litter of 8 piglets. There was, as is often the
case, a runt of the litter. Because he was the smallest piglet the children of
the family called him DiDi, which in Chinese is an affectionate term meaning
‘Little Brother’. Chinese people are as soft hearted as most in the world and
the little pig DiDi was not sent to market with his larger brothers, instead
being treated more like a pet.
One day early in 2000 DiDi escaped from his pen, and went into the house of the
family in search of food, which he found. However, he was spotted by the
Inventor and was chased back out into the yard where he ran up onto the
two-wheel cart used for transporting hay from the field to the storage sheds.
 Trapped on the cart he began to panic a bit and jumped from side to side on the
cart looking for a way of escape. Because the sides of the cart were raised he
could not get away. However as he jumped from side to side the cart started to
move forward. This frightened DiDi even more and he jumped faster. The faster
he moved from side to side the faster the cart moved forward.
Eventually his movements were so frantic that he broke through the side railing
of the cart, and fell into the pond by the side of the house.
He was then quickly chased by the whole family back into his sty and firmly
locked in.
The Inventor had seen the cart move as the pig jumped on the back of it and this
intrigued him. After DiDi was safely back in his pen the Inventor went back to
the cart and stood up on it. He started moving his weight from side to side,
from one leg to the other, and the cart started to move forward as it had done
with DiDi. The Inventors children also had a go and had a lot of fun playing on
the "magic" cart as they saw it.
 The Inventor
saw how much fun his children had with the cart and the idea of making a small
version for them to play on was born. Three months later he had built the first
car.
Because of it’s shape and because of the pig that started it all the car was
called the didicar.
The first toy was so popular with the children in the village that the Inventor
made some more and then began selling them as demand spread. Today some 5 years
after the escaped pig episode some 1,000,000 cars have been sold.
As for DiDi, well he claimed the original idea as his own and sued the Inventor
under the new Intellectual Property Rights. They reached a settlement out of
court for an undisclosed amount and DiDi is now living in a 10 roomed sty in
the Bahamas with his own cart that he can jump on and his own pool that he can
jump in any time.
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