By Anne-Beatrice ClasmannDavid Frem is the epitome of the can-do mentality. The former design student constructs supercars that appeal to every macho motorist in his parent’s garden. When Frem races through the quiet hills of Naccache, Lebanon he makes everybody’s head turn.The local green-grocer marvels and soldiers at checkpoints stare. One truck driver stops in the middle of an intersection with his mouth gaping and envy in his eyes as he gazes at the big white sports car racing with a loud roar through the landscape.Frem’s car is a macho’s dream with a big exhaust, red racing seat-belts, a powerful engine and an action movie-like design. The interior might look a little improvised but the hand-made fibreglass body looks cool and elegant. “Is it a Ferrari, a Lamborghini?” many amazed pedestrians wonder. No, Lebanese designer David Frem constructed the hot rod himself, rather like a boy building his first soapbox in his parents’ garage.But in Frem’s case, the 30-year-old doesn’t use wood panels but metal and fibreglass instead. The white supercar is the second vehicle that he has designed and built. It has a top speed of 280km/h and accelerates quickly. But currently student Frem is feeling frustrated. “My goal is to build a car factory in Lebanon but unfortunately there is no government support for young entrepreneurs,” he complains.Frem lives with his parents in a lower basement apartment in Naccache, a Christian suburb of Beirut. The apartment has a garden where the self-taught car builder welds, assembles and sands his vehicles.At the moment there are parts for the body for his third car in the garden: a massive looking military style-like SUV named the “Frem Immortal”. Frem wants to offer it for sale. His asking price for the vehicle with big wheels and an aggressive front is $66,000.Frem doesn’t see a problem getting a roadworthiness certificate for the car: “It will fulfil all of Lebanon’s safety standards like my other first two cars.”But before it’s finished, Frem first needs to scrape together the money he needs for the motor and the other parts that he has ordered online in the United States. Or to be more precise in auto city Detroit, where he wants to emigrate if he does not succeed in finding an investor for his factory.That’s because Frem is no longer content to remain as he is. “This is not a life, I have to think about my future,” he says. His parent’s garden, situated further down the hill slope, does not have a driveway, so every time Frem finishes a car he has to order a crane to lift it to the street.A few years ago the future looked rosy for Frem. In 2009 he presented a model in Detroit and won a design award. A media frenzy ensued and the Sunni billionaire and politician Saad al-Hariri got interested in his idea for a “Lebanese car”.With Hariri’s financial support he built the “Frem Beirut Edition” supercar. Hariri became prime minister, but his government was then brought down and eventually the businessman left Lebanon.Since then David Frem has received hardly any attention for his project. But the designer, who is wearing dark sunglasses and bright yellow sneakers on this sunny November day, doesn’t give up so quickly.Frem says his parents and friends are proud of what he has achieved and have given him encouragement. But he is especially angry with Lebanon’s industry minster who was photographed with Frem but then didn’t provide him support.That experience has spurred Frem to enter politics: “Next year I will run in my area in the parliamentary elections as a candidate for the youth. I don’t care if I’m not elected as long as I can get my message out there.”And when Frem turns up at an election event in one of his supercars he’s certain to get the voters’ attention at the very least. — DPA