Lotus founder and legendary designer Colin Chapman is famous for his “Simplify, then add lightness” quote and his preference for minimal weight in lieu of massive horsepower. But Chapman was never a drag racer and sometimes you just need to slice up a Geo Metro to stuff a Small-Block Chevy V8 in it instead of worrying about making it lighter. That’s exactly what some twisted mind appears to have done with this back-halved econobox, which is on sale in southwest Michigan for $6,500.
Back-halving a Metro is certainly an interesting proposition; the big drag slicks out back sit just a couple feet apart under the short-wheelbase.
However, the more radical changes sure look to have been done under the hood, where the madman builder threw out—possibly literally threw, mind you—the 1.0-liter G10 three-cylinder Suzuki engine. The firewall was also cut out and what the seller claims is a 350-horsepower Chevy 355 was mounted almost entirely behind the front wheels of the car with the chassis set up to take considerably more power.
Not only is it a radical built, the seller also claims it’s street legal and has an NHRA-certified 8.50-second cage, which means that a particularly insane and enterprising sociopath might consider this a perfectly reasonable Hot Rod Drag Week ride. All we know is that overhead switches are one of the coolest coolest thing you can do to any race car and this bitchin’ Metro has those in spades.
Find this maniacal build on CraigsList here and permalinked here.
Wow! It must be steered by thought control as some clown forgot to put on a steering wheel. Or does that ultra-short wheelbase and those huge tyres mean that it is incapable of driving in anything apart from a straight line…
I have said that there is no way I would drive a Geo Metro again. After seeing this I would definitely reconsider.