1962 Skoda Octavia with a BMW V8 Engine Screams “Controversy”

We are talking about a Skoda Octavia, the original model, which has gone through a deep restomod process that sees it using a BMW V8 heart. Sure, taking a 1962 car and fitting it with a V8 belonging to a vehicle built almost four decades later might seem natural here in the US, but this build comes all the way from Poland.

The ingredients for the project, as autoforum.cz writes, were a rusty Octavia and a totaled E39 540i, whose mechanical side remained untouched by the impact that killed the car.

Both cars were owned by a mechanic named Grzegorzovo, who decided to turn his metallic fantasies into reality and join the two. While Grzegorzovo was not at his first extreme four-wheeled project, he decided to keep the body of the original car instead of building a complete Frankenstein.

As a result, the 5 Series was stripped of its engine, six-speed automatic gearbox and rear axle. As those of you who have gone below the carpet on the floor of a car can imagine, the wiring job was nothing short of an intense maze ride.

Still, when you’re installing a V8 on a car originally powered by a 1,089cc engine making 42 hp, you expect to put a ton of work into it.

The body of the Skoda was reinforced, with a rollcage leading the list of visible changes. While the body was slightly extended and the BMW driveshaft was shortened, everything came together like a gigantic mechanical puzzle in the end. A puzzle that rides on 18-inch wheels, that is.

Once the final exterior and interior touches were added (the video below shows the Skoda before these were installed), the car was put on a scale - the original weighed in at 2,028 lbs (920 kg), while the BMW-ized version changed that to around 2,640 lbs (1,200 kg).

Speaking of the final touches, the details used for the car, from the black and white exterior to the seats, shout “controversy,” but we prefer to focus on the future of the project.

For instance, the approximately 250 hp of the V8 are not that impressive, with the owner planning to take things down the forced induction route soon.

More importantly, a limited slip differential is on Santa’s list. That would allow the car to pull proper drifts instead of the silly tire-smoking maneuvers we can see in the video below.