Imagine you’re speeding across the Moroccan desert, trying to escape a war zone, when you bottom out in your trusty Citroën 2CV. The sickening “crunch” you hear as the axle snaps tells you everything: your car isn’t taking you anywhere. So what do you do? Do you hoof it across the desert? Roll over and accept your fate? If you’re Emile Leray, you do neither. You take apart your car—and build a motorcycle instead.

Leray’s story is the stuff of legend. In 1992, the French electrical engineer wrecked his car while racing away from the village of Tan-Tan in Morocco, well off road and with no hope of rescue. Stranded and alone, Leray decided that if his car wouldn’t take him home, he’d turn it into something that could. And so, over the course of 12 days, he disassembled his Citroën 2CV—a humble budget car with long-travel suspension and a body designed for French farmers—and reassembled its engine, transmission, and a couple of wheels into a makeshift motorcycle. He rode his new machine to safety, only to be pulled over by the police when he arrived in town.

The man deserves a lifetime MacGyver award. When the MythBusters team tried to recreate Leray’s feat, they failed. Twice. His mechanical skill is simply unmatched. But the kicker in this tale? Leray was only about 20 miles from the nearest town when he built his motorcycle. He probably could have walked.

Did he really need to build the bike?

According to Leray, he’d rationed out about 10 days of supplies when he realized he couldn’t drive any farther. To survive, he quickly removed the body of the car to use as shelter and began the slow work of converting the vehicle into a motorcycle. By the time he finished 12 days later, he was pretty thirsty—but not defeated.

Had he chosen to walk, he might have made it to town before running out of water. Even at a slow pace of two miles per day, he could have reached safety in time. But leaving the safety of his makeshift camp in the middle of a desert with only a vague idea of where he was would have been risky. And if he’d misjudged the distance to the nearest town, things could have gotten a lot worse.

Was it all about the legend?

The truth is, Leray probably didn’t know just how close he was to help. He was following a detour through the desert, avoiding conflict in a nearby war zone, and most likely had no idea of the exact distance to the next settlement. But when he realized how close he’d been while meticulously building his bike, he might have kicked himself for not just hoofing it. Still, there’s no question that “I built a motorcycle from my wrecked car and rode to town” makes for a far more legendary story than “I walked.”

And in the end, it’s the legend we remember.

You can see the Mythbusters team attempt to repeat Leray’s feat in the video below: