Oamaru man Stephen Murray (52) has a week to find a new home for the time machine he lovingly built from scratch.
The artist is packing up and leaving Oamaru next week after three years in the town.
He is fast running out of time to sell one of his larger creations, a replica of "one of the best science fiction props ever made", the time machine from the film that won the 1961 Academy Award for best special effects, The Time Machine.
Four years ago, Mr Murray spent 2500 hours building the time machine from "fibreglass and toilet rolls".
Yesterday, he demonstrated the contraption, sitting in the plush driver’s seat.
Lights flickered and the disc spun, and whirring noises and 1960s-era electronics pealed to give the impression of speeding through time.
And though the date on the dial was 1674, Mr Murray said his choice of a time to visit would be the 1950s and ’60s.
"It was happy, it was a boom time, the war was over," he said.
"Imagine what it was like without the internet, cellphones and all that stuff."
He remained an ardent science fiction fan, and a fan of the "old school" special effects of the late 1960s and ’70s, when he was growing up.
The time machine was not his first attempt at re-creating science fiction machines.
When he was 11 he read about "how to build a Dalek" (Dr Who’s infamous alien adversaries) in a magazine.
And so, as a boy in Totara Park, Auckland, he set out with a hammer and saw.
More than two decades later, in 1999, he saw his dream through to completion.
And when he moved from Oxford, North Canterbury, to the Waitaki district he briefly tried to keep his private Time Travellers Museum, containing more than 3000 pop culture artefacts, open.
Oamaru’s Time Travellers Experience closed in December 2014 after opening a year and a-half earlier and Mr Murray has been selling his collection, amassed over 20 years, since.
Originally wanting $10,000 for his time machine, Mr Murray recently listed it on an online auction site with a $4000 reserve, but it failed to sell.
He said if the contraption was not sold before he left Oamaru he planned to give it to a place where it would be appreciated.
