Cigarette packets – sports car by Xi'an University students

Everyone knows you make cars out of steel. Or maybe aluminium if you're Audi, carbonfibre if you're McLaren, or even glassfibre plastic if you're Corvette.

But for some folk, conventional substances just don't satisfy. Engineers inhabiting the outer limits of the car industry have been experimenting with strange materials for years, some of them making genuine efforts to push the boundaries of automotive technology, others just for a bit of a laugh.

The car pictured was made in China from cigarette packets and certainly falls into the latter category. It was unveiled in March 2012 by the engineering students who designed it.

The vehicle took 10,280 cigarette packets and eight months to build. It really drives too but there's no word on who did all the smoking. We'd guess that they're not feeling too hot right about now.