Yao Fuxing (right) shows the Transformer he made to visitors in Hebei province. Fu XinchunfFor China Daily

A father has made a huge "Optimus Prime" figure for his son as an 18th birthday present.

Yao Fuxing, a 44-year-old resident of Hejian, Hebei province, made the model using parts from abandoned cars, motorcycles and farm vehicles.

The 4.3-meter-high replica of the fictional character from the film Transformers weighs 1.5 metric tons.

Its head is made of a motorcycle helmet, its eyes are two discarded cameras, the armor came from a motorcycle tank and its feet are made of tires.

The components took Yao three months to collect and assemble.

"My son is a big fan of Transformers. He bought many toys after watching the film," Yao said, adding that the idea of making an autobot hit him while watching the film with the teenager eight months ago.

Earlier this year, Yao spent five months making a 3.5-meter-high "Bumblebee" - a yellow autobot from Transformers - that weighs one ton.

His son loved it so much, Yao decided to tackle another character.

"The experience of making Bumblebee made it easy for me to construct Optimus Prime" he said.

He found an image of Optimus Prime and calculated the size of each part of his model, then searched for suitable components from abandoned vehicles.

"You have to try repeatedly to narrow down which parts of vehicles fit the pieces of Optimus Prime," Yao said.

It was difficult finding the parts, because some pieces of the transformer needed more than one of the same vehicle part, but each vehicle might only have one.

In his search for parts, Yao often hung around the collection stations of scrap-iron merchants.

After he finished collecting the required parts, he had them repainted and hired a crane to assemble them.

The body of Optimus Prime is painted red, blue and gray, and the upper body was polished three times to make it look more muscular.

After assembling the model, Yao installed a power transmission system inside, which is an upgrade from the Bumblebee he made.

Yao said he couldn't sleep well at nights while wondering how to make the power transmission system work.

He finally succeeded after changing his plans many times.

Controlled by different switches, the model's eyes can light up, and its arms swing back and forth.

It can also play the theme song and dubbed lines from the movie Transformers.

The huge copies of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime have attracted many visitors from the neighboring community.

His son, Yao Zihan, who was excited at receiving the gift, said, "I admire my dad very much, and I will learn from his skills in the future."

Yao senior said he has been interested in mechanical devices since he was a young boy because his father was a blacksmith and he grew up surrounded by mechanical toys.

His experience as a navy pilot for 15 years ago also gave him skills that he used making the giant autobot model.

Now Yao is assembling a mechanical robot dog, also a character from Transformers.

"In several days, the robot dog will be finished. I will take it and the pictures of the other two autobots to show in other cities," he said.

If they are popular and can be sold at a good price, he will consider making more, he said.