Ever wonder how much horsepower a real Power Wheels car makes? On a dyno, somewhere about 1/1oth of a horsepower on the strongest power mode. That’s enough to keep two cute tots cruising around the front yard, happy and more-or-less safe. And that’s why kids grow out of Power Wheels so fast…as they get bigger, the little plastic car no longer fulfills the need for speed. Soon it’s a request for a bike…then a go-kart…then a dirt bike, or a car, or whatever is keeping your little gearhead happy, and the Power Wheels that was such a good buy when they were tiny is now being ridden down some off-road park’s steepest hill by a 302-pound guy known as “Mack” who is about a 1/10th of a second away from losing a wheel and going ass-over-teakettle into the crowd, plastic parts soon to follow.

Then there’s the Grind Hard Plumbing Co. guys, who have been cranking out psychotic little Frankenstein’s Monsters for a short bit of time, each build upstaging the last. Their current focus is a Jeep Hurricane-bodied, four-wheel-drive KTM 990 V-twin-powered machine that they’ve been cracking on since just after Christmas. Not that any of their past projects have been snoozers, but this thing will be bona-fide mental. The last Jeep they built will wheelie on demand while throwing a roostertail of dirt out of the back. This one will have the power-to-weight ratio, rider included, of a Peregrine falcon in freefall. It’ll be powerful enough that the question of “should I ride that” actually will be pondered for a moment.

Fifty days since the build began, we now have two first fires: once when a coil nuked itself, and then when the V-twin barked to life. Check it out: