10 More than Crazy Engine Swaps
Swapping an LS engine into any number of classic or modern vehicles has become commonplace. However, every now and again there are some pretty wild creations cooked up by talented individuals to create truly unique, and sometimes incredibly crazy cars. Check out a handful of these insane engine swaps that are likely to leave you in awe.
1. Nash Rambler-Ferrari
First up we have a 1960 Nash Rambler Wagon married to a 3.6L V8 out of a Ferrari 360 Modena. Known as the "Ferrambo," this car may seem like it has undergone just a simple rear-engine swap, but there has been extensive work completed to make this car drive as good as it looks. The car utilizes the Ferrari's unequal wishbone suspension and 6-speed gearbox but includes an entirely new custom chassis with hundreds of bespoke components sprinkled throughout the vehicle to give onlookers hours of rolling art to ogle at. With an exotic powerplant and top notch craftsmanship, it is no wonder this car received the 2008 Detroit Autorama Ridler Street Rod Award.
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2. Fiat 500-Lamborghini V12
If you were to look at a Lamborghini V12 engine sitting next to a stock Fiat 500, the engine is almost the same length as the entire car. With a bit of ingenuity and some extreme fabrication, the two are a match made in Italian heaven. In order to accommodate the 580 horsepower V12, a space frame chassis was created and the all-wheel drive system was kept intact to ensure power is put to the ground. While the car features entirely new rear fenders with gaping air intakes that completely alter the look of the little Cinquecento, this is the most badass Fiat 500 you're bound to encounter.
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3. Airplane-engined Plymouth Pickup
The notion that airplane engines belong in the sky seems to have gone unnoticed by these individuals who did just that. Wrap your mind around a transplanted 300hp Jacobs Radial engine out of a 1950's Cessna 195 Seaplane and putting it into a 1939 Plymouth pickup truck. With the radical radial cylinders sticking out of the engine bay, the creators decided to keep with the airplane theme by hand-bucking hundreds of rivets around the body panels of the truck as well as creating an interior that would have passengers believing they are actually inside an airplane cockpit.
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4. VW Bus-Porsche Twin Turbo
Imagine driving your sports car at a track event only to be blitzed by a classic Volkswagen Bus! While it may be hard to fathom, this bus has undergone numerous upgrades including a 570 horsepower 3.6L twin-turbo engine out of a Porsche 993 Turbo. The car gives Porsches, and Lamborghinis hell at race tracks such as Spa-Francorchamps. With powerful family sedans gaining popularity, a hot-rod production bus like this produced by VW would surely sell like hot cakes.
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5. Citroen 2CV-Ferrari
The 2CV was a small twin-cylinder economy car produced by the French automobile manufacturer, Citroen, from the late 1940's until 1990. All of the economics and cost saving measures that this model was designed upon was completely thrown out the window when the owner of this particular 2CV delivery truck installed a Ferrari 355 V8. The story goes that a group of rowdy Italian rally enthusiasts took a Citroen body and mated it to the Ferrari chassis, and to this day continue to antagonize patrons of Lake Como with spirited drives through the twisties while the howling of the flat-plane V8 echoes through the hillsides.
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6. Blown "Hemi" Cooper
Anyone at all familiar with the modern Mini Cooper cars will tell you how little room there is in the engine compartment. It's so bad that if you are gonna do any service work up front, it basically has to be disassembled to do so. With that in mind, it is a marvelous sight to see this little Mini with a blown 8/71 BDS 392 Hemi peering out the top of the hood. Although all of the dimensions of the car remain intact including the firewall, the car actually has a tube chassis, Mustang II front-end, four-link rear-end, and 335 wide meaty rear tires to try to tame all 650 American ponies.
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7. Corvair-Jaguar V12 "Jaguair"
Much like a Porsche 911 and Volkswagen Beetle, the Chevrolet Corvair used an air-cooled engine located at the rear of the car to drive the rear wheels. Apparently, the original owner of the car didn't care much for the little 2.3L engine or its location, so he decided to take a 370 horsepower V12 Jaguar engine and place it in the front trunk. This is perhaps the most extensively redesigned car on our list because just about every component on the car had to be modified, reworked, or fabricated in order to accept the new engine. The owner received the Special Recognition Award for Innovation and Spirit at the 8th Advanced Engine Technology Conference for his work in 1997.
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8. Twin Cadillac V8-powered Yugo
The Yugo has been the butt of many jokes over the years for being a cheap car of relatively poor quality. Despite selling many cars around the world, spotting a Yugo today is a rare sight, especially one equipped with two V8 engines. This particular Yugo has been hot-rodded to the hilt with a 500 cubic-inch Cadillac motor in the front of the car driving the front wheels and the exact same engine in the boot driving the rear axle. That combo makes for a combined 900 horsepower of all-wheel drive fun. Even more impressive is the car looks reasonably stock to the untrained eye, thus making for the ultimate sleeper car.
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9. Mercedes V12-Engined Cobra
The AC Cobra used the concept of a lightweight chassis coupled with a big engine to achieve great feats in the racing arena. Although the competition versions of the Cobra featured 485 horsepower from Ford 427 V8s, they pale in comparison to this supercharged V12 Mercedes making over 600 ponies. The car has all the trick bits including Ohlins suspension, brawny side pipes, and carbon-fiber galore, but our attention is continually drawn back to the twin-screw supercharger and the spaghetti-like intake pipes and exhaust manifolds that are poking out of the engine bay. While it's not a V8, chances are Carroll Shelby himself would have given a nod of approval to this one.
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10. LS3 Twin-Turbo Internation Truck
This radical creation started life as a 1964 International Loadstar medium-duty truck that was typically used in delivery, construction, and agricultural applications. That said, the truck is a long way from its original form as it is now highly modified. The vehicle now sits on a custom chassis with C6 corvette suspension and uses a fire-breathing, mid-mounted, twin-turbo LS3 engine producing 1,000 horsepower. While it has lost its capacity to tow/haul commodities, it can instead roast the tires doing power burnouts with the best of them.
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