The VW Lupo: cheap, small, 3-cylinder engines. It's also pretty old, so the only reason to buy one is to have a cheap shopping trolley or... a crazy engine swap?
For some reason, the same thing that makes the Lupo bad also makes it good. It's cheap to buy, and many Europeans took it upon themselves to stuff as much engine as is humanly possible into this little frame. Most often, we find Volkswagen's old VR6 fitted under the hood, and that's pretty amazing.
However, one man from Romania decided to take over the local drag racing scene with a specimen that has not one but two 2.0 TFSI powertrains, one at the front and another over the back.
At this point, almost nothing is left of the original car, but it's still got the cute little Lupo's front end, which makes it all very funny. In the videos below, the 1,200 horsepower machine can be seen barreling down a runway with a 1/4 mile time of under 9 seconds.
From what we understand, engines come from a S3 and each comes with its own DQ250 DSG gearbox so it's AWD in a strange way. Team DOP Motorsport took the mental Lupo to Santa Pod in the UK this month, where it was testing a new 1,800 horsepower setup. Unfortunately, the setup wasn't yet ready to beat the previous times.
Drag radials have been installed to make full use of the massive output. The suspension is all custom-made here, while the fenders have had to be extended quite a bit. You can't miss the large intercooler sticking out the front and the extra vents at the back. This thing is like an old rally car, even sporting a different roof for better streamlining. Is that from a Honda, or are we imagining things?
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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