Newsletters
A man in the Demirci district of Manisa is making "toy wire cars" to stay away from the coffeehouse after a lung ailment he had three years ago, and to make children happy.
Working in a small workshop at his home in the Akincilar Neighborhood, 69-year-old Ali Riza Isci builds toy vehicles from old bearings and construction wire, modeling them on buses he saw on the roads in the past and on his own imagination.
Through the wire vehicles, Isci both keeps alive the handmade toys of the past and wants children to move away from screens and spend time making things.
Ali Riza Isci, the son of a former bus driver, a father of two and a grandfather of four, stated that he focuses entirely on recycling and handiwork in making wire cars.
Saying he values the richness of the heart more than material wealth in his life, Isci said he started this project after a lung ailment he had three years ago.
Saying he has given about 50 of the vehicles he has made so far as gifts to children in the neighborhood, Ali Riza Isci continued: "Three years ago, I had an ailment in my lungs. Thanks to our doctors, I was treated for eight months, and we cleared the clot in my lungs."
Isci said that when he goes to the coffeehouse, his friends inevitably smoke, so he decided to take up this work "so that I would not be affected and also to stay away from the coffeehouse a little."
He said he started "by eye and inspired by the buses passing on the road." "My father was also a bus driver, and I love buses very much because of him," he added.
Speaking about why he took up the work, Isci said: "From childhood, people look for an activity to have fun. So, for children to have fun and value this work, I started improving myself at the age of 69, making the things we do even better."
Explaining that he completes the decorations of the toys with colorful fluorescent adhesives he collects from advertisers, Isci said he makes wire vehicles such as trucks, tractors, minibuses and cars, drawing inspiration from his eye for measurement and his memories of buses from the past.
Saying that everyone in Demirci knows him as "grandpa" and that he got this nickname because he loves spending time with children, Ali Riza Isci said: "We are people who like to come down to the children's level."
He said his curiosity about making wire cars stemmed from mobile phones and cartoons being things that "distract children in our age." "We wanted children to get rid of them, even a little," he added.
Recalling his own childhood, Isci said: "In our own childhood, we could not find wire or materials; we would say 'just make it' to our elders, and they would say 'make it yourself.' We would get it ourselves and try to make it."
He said young people today also have "a weak sense of working hard and making their own toys."
Isci said he started by thinking, "let me first make wire cars for my own grandchildren and keep their attention away from mobile phones and cartoons a little." He said his grandchildren are busy with the cars for "two to three hours a day" when they come to his home.
"They watch me while I attach the steering wheel, make the bolt, make the thin wire, they examine it, and they don't leave the garden," he said.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
2 min read
