The students of a high school in Wakayama prefecture have constructed a clock featuring a rotating sculpture of the DeLorean time machine from the “Back to the Future” movie series, and have displayed it in their school courtyard.

Over the course of five years, the students of Tanabe Technical High School have worked together to construct the showpiece in the hope that it will become a new school symbol.

Measuring nearly 14 feet long and more than 3-1/2 feet high, the vehicle’s surface is made from aluminum sheets and features LED lighting. Because the students had no official blueprints of the time-traveling sports car, they determined its size and color by referencing the movies and commercially available models.

The sculpture slowly rotates four times each weekday — 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. — to the theme song from the first movie. At 6 p.m. the lights around the base are set aglow, attracting many local residents.

Since the start of the project, about 400 to 500 students have been involved, building the vehicle’s chassis and base, and adding the lights. When the sculpture was installed in the courtyard in March 2020, three students from the school’s manufacturing research club built a drive unit to enable the sculpture to rotate. The project was completed in December.

“We were thrilled to be able to bring this project, which our upperclassmen had been working on for years, to completion,” said Masaki Hirohata, creator of the drive unit. “I hope that seeing the DeLorean will make more students want to enroll in our school.”