Look at that little car go! This little car has a big motor, that’s what makes it so fast! A Croatian genius has taken the diminutive Volkswagen Lupo, which at its most potent had just 120 horsepower when it was new on the showroom floor, and fitted it with an Audi 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 in the rear hatch pushing 530 horsepower to the rear wheels. All-in, ready to race, this car weighs just 2,248 pounds, giving it the same power-to-weight ratio as a Tesla Model S Plaid, and just shy of a Porsche 918 Spyder.
Volkswagen built about half a million Lupo cars over the course of the model’s production run from 1998 to 2005, but you can bet that there isn’t another one like this. There is actually very little Lupo left in this car, it’s basically a tube-frame chassis wearing the skin of a Lupo. Isn’t that fantastic?
The engine in this car was cribbed from a B5-generation Audi RS4, which produced 375 horsepower when it was new in 1999, but this particular engine has clearly had the boost turned up a bit. The driver, Janko Medved, claims the car is just at the beginning of its development, and will make even more power as the 2024 racing season continues.
In a previous life this hillclimb special was fitted with a comparatively-tiny Suzuki Hayabusa engine with a supercharger on top. Here it is doing donuts in a tiny parking lot.
There must be something in the water over in Europe, because the enthusiasts there always seem capable of building totally wacky and amazing stuff. The American mind simply cannot comprehend the concept of little car having a big motor. We are not capable of such greatness. First of all, where would we even find little car to begin with?
