It never hurts to ask. 14-year-old Matthew James sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to the head of Mercedes’ F1 team asking for £35,000 (~$55,000) for a bionic hand, which they could brand like an F1 car. Mercedes’ response? They made him the most advanced prosthetic hand in the world.
Mercedes worked with Touch Bionics to customise an i-LIMB Pulse hand for Matthew, who was born without a hand. The i-LIMB is a bluetooth-enabled prosthesis that allows wearers to tie shoes, put on belts, and use a pen to write or draw.
Mercedes Grand Prix operates on a budget well-north of $US150m — Michael Schumacher alone makes $US26million in 2011 — so it’s not so much the money that went into the project as the willingness to help. That is, unless it’s all just a sinister plot to enter the lucrative prosthetic-branding business. [Telegraph]