Small Packages, Big Power: 10 Tiny Cars With Shockingly Large Engines

Typically, automotive corporations lose the plot. Totally. At situations like these, they might green-light initiatives that operate tiny cars fitted with extremely efficient engines. Usually, it may moreover entail eradicating a extraordinarily surroundings pleasant and wise engine, and altering it with one factor rather a lot louder and additional extremely efficient. And usually, it may even embody the addition of a second engine to an current, very wise little automotive. Like Mercedes-Benz did when it created the nonsensical, twin-engined A38 AMG.

This report comprises cars from these moments when auto agency executives had a momentary lapse of widespread sense and created cars that make no specific sense nonetheless are so completely implausible, the world is all the upper for them current.

The smallest cars, with in all probability probably the most extremely efficient engines, courtesy of automotive corporations. Thankfully, quite a lot of automotive corporations have had these moments that lacked wise and monetary sense, ensuing inside the cars on this report.

10

Toyota Aygo Crazy

Power: Turbocharged 1.8-liter (197 hp)

A automotive designed with ‘the enjoyment of driving’ prime of ideas. That’s the Toyota Aygo Crazy, the little metropolis runabout turned, correctly, crazy. Toyota engineers threw out the Aygo’s extraordinarily surroundings pleasant, 68-hp engine driving the doorway wheels, and put within the MR-2’s 1.8-liter VVT-i engine, respiratory through a Toyota Motorsport turbocharger, behind the doorway seats. Driving the rear wheels, the lightweight Crazy’s 197 hp provides ample punch, coupled with wonderful coping with, to go away quite extra extremely efficient cars coughing on its exhaust gases.

Oh, and it doesn’t have any digital driving aids, or power steering, or ABS brakes. For some crazy goal, Toyota solely made one automotive, depriving us of what seems to be a implausible little effectivity hatch.

9

Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 Talbot

Engine: Turbocharged 1.8-liter (197 hp)

Inside the early Eighties, Peugeot wished in on the premier Group B class, wowing crowds as part of the World Rally Championship (WRC) spectacle. In order that they recruited a Frenchman often known as Jean Todt to run the employees, and set about making a bespoke rally automotive very loosely based on a 205 manufacturing automotive to take the battle to the mighty Audi Quattro rally cars. Shortly adequate, the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 grew to grow to be the model new chief of the WRC pack.

As required by Group B guidelines, 200 road-legal variations of the 205 Turbo 16 wanted to be constructed and provided. And thank goodness for that. The freeway mannequin’s mid-mounted, turbocharged 1.8-liter may solely produce 197 hp, nonetheless with the combo of trick 4WD, a five-speed handbook gearbox and actually low weight, the Turbo 16 is a machine of observe.

8

AMC Gremlin 304

Engine: 5.0-liter V8 (210 hp)

Inside the Nineteen Seventies, the AMC Gremlin 304’s five-liter V8 produced 210 hp, driving the rear wheels. With a 97-inch wheelbase, and weighing in at spherical 2,600 kilos, the Gremlin’s effectivity was surprisingly brisk, able to sprint from 0-60 mph in decrease than 9 seconds. It was comparatively low price inside the Seventies, with the entry-level fashions aimed squarely on the Volkswagen Beetle.

So it supplied a stunning amount of bang for the buck, with a number of potential to enhance the engine to make way more horses. It was, of sorts, the slightly-less-flush-with-cash-customer’s Chevrolet Corvette or Ford Mustang.

7

Ford Shogun

Engine: 3.0-liter V6 (220 hp)

Picture the scene: you are a Ford Racing engineer, nonetheless you could have obtained an element for the long-lasting Renault R5 Turbo, with its mid-mounted engine. What to do? Create your particular person Ford mannequin of said R5 Turbo, in truth. In order that they took to a Ford Festiva hatch and sourced a Ford Taurus SHO V6 engine, and put in it behind the rear seats, just like the Renault. The 24-valve, 3.0-liter V6 produced 220 hp straight out of the Taurus, and it remained in stock trim for its new place inside the small Festiva.

Some R5 Turbo-like physique panels allowed for some chunky rear tires to be fitted, to get all the horses on the underside. With a plan to assemble as a lot as 250 cars, the company sadly solely managed seven cars. {{Car}} nut Jay Leno happens to private one amongst these cars, and decided in order so as to add a nitrous oxide tools that hikes power to higher than 300 hp.

6

Mercedes-Benz A38 AMG

Engines: Two 1.9-liter four-cylinder engines (250 hp blended)

How do you make a Mercedes-Benz A-Class, with its compact design leaving little or no space for together with turbochargers or superchargers or totally different such appendages, go technique, technique earlier than it was ever imagined to go? You give it two engines, instead of 1! That’s exactly what Mercedes-Benz did when it created the A38 AMG, with a 1.9-liter four-cylinder engine for each axle. The bespoke 4WD A-Class featured a lowered suspension and a brake enhance from the E55 AMG, and it would sprint from 0-60 mph in decrease than six seconds. Curiously, in default mode, the A38 AMG is barely powered by the distinctive engine, on the doorway. A change inside the cabin prompts the rear engine, turning the family hatch proper right into a 250-hp large hatch.

It appears solely two A38 AMGs have been ever made and served as agency cars for Mercedes-Benz System One drivers Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard in 1999.

5

Renault Clio V6 Half 2

Engine: 3.0-liter V6 (252 hp)

Renault apparently has an element about placing in extremely efficient engines in small cars. After setting the preliminary sample with the long-lasting Renault R5 Turbo inside the Eighties, the French agency created the first Clio V6 in 2001. That first-generation model, typically known as the Half 1, had a reputation for making an attempt to wrap itself spherical bushes subsequent to the freeway… the transient wheelbase, all of the burden on pushed rear wheels, a extremely mild entrance end and no digital safety nannies resulted in a number of of these cars ending up in large accidents. The half 2 mannequin arrived in 2003, and by no means solely had additional power, nonetheless the coping with was rather a lot improved, with traction administration moreover inside the recreation.

The super-cool Clio V6 stays to be a benchmark tiny-car-with-a-big-engine enterprise, and you haven’t truly lived until you could have pushed one amongst these machines, and survived to tell the story. It isn’t solely a automotive, it is an automotive occasion, all by itself.

4

Nissan Micra R

Engine: 2.0-liter, four-cylinder (265 hp)

Yep, now we have all had the dialogue spherical a barbecue. What would happen within the occasion you took a 3.5-liter V6 from a Nissan Z350 and put in it in, say, a Nissan Micra? Properly, shock no additional! In 2003, Nissan Good Britain created the Micra R. It started life as a smart and humble Micra 1.4 SE. RML, the company that ran Nissan’s British Touring {{Car}} Championship employees inside the Nineties, eradicated the 1.4-liter engine, and fitted a 265-hp, SR20DE Nissan Primera racing automotive engine behind the seats, powering the rear wheels. The physique was widened, the suspension given a sporty makeover, and a roll cage added.

The result? A Nissan Micra that will rev to eight,000 rpm, and get from 0-60 mph in decrease than 5 seconds. Nissan later modified the highly-strung racing engine with a 300-hp Nissan 350Z V6 engine, and it nonetheless serves as a promoting instrument for Nissan to this present day.

3

Renault Twingo TwinRun

Engine: 3.5-liter V6 (320 hp)

In 2013, Renault was at it as soon as extra, creating the one-off Twingo TwinRun. This spaceframe with carbon fiber physique panels is constructed by a motorsport outfit, and is powered by a mid-mounted 3.5-liter V6 straight out of a Renault Megane Trophy racing automotive, producing 320 hp. A six-speed sequential gearbox and a restricted slip differential sends the flexibility to the rear wheels. It moreover has a double wishbone suspension and racing damper system, so this little Renault is unquestionably a pukka racing automotive.

Sadly, Renault solely created one occasion as a promoting instrument and an early taster of the third-generation Twingo, which was launched in European markets in 2014. What a pity. A hatch that sounds this good truly have to be made.

2

Aston Martin Cygnet V8

Engine: 4.7-liter V8 (430 hp)

The Aston Martin Cygnet is a additional upmarket mannequin of Toyota’s tiny iQ, and it was on sale between 2011 and 2013. Nonetheless you always get that one Aston Martin proprietor who wants additional, and additional. The Cygnet’s stock 1.3-liter engine merely didn’t scale back it for this proprietor, and he requested one factor a bit additional extremely efficient. Identical to the 430 hp V8 that powered the Vantage S. Crazy, correct? Aston Martin didn’t suppose so… and so this mad little Cygnet observed the sunshine.

It was, clearly, a whole modification, carried out in-house by Aston Martin engineers. This included a roll cage that grew to grow to be an integral part of the chassis, a model new bulkhead and transmission tunnel have been fabricated, whereas the Vantage sub-frames and suspension have been built-in into the design. The engine stays stock in its 430 hp tune, nonetheless inside the mild automotive it interprets to a 330 hp/tonne power-to-weight ratio. The little Cygnet can now sprint from 0-60 mph in merely 4.2 seconds.

1

Volkswagen Golf GTI W12-650

Engine: 6.0-liter, twin-turbocharged W12 (650 hp)

In 2007, to have a very good time the thirtieth anniversary of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, the company created a one-off specific, powered by a W12 engine straight out of a Bentley Continental. The 650-hp engine, respiratory through two turbochargers, is fitted behind the rear seats, and powers the rear wheels. You might suppose that VW solely created this specific GTI to look and sound the spectacular half, ideally suited to motor reveals and automotive meets.

Nonetheless no, the VW engineers actually created a beast of an element that will actually be pushed on a monitor, and they also did it in merely eight weeks. Sincere adequate, it shared most of the distinctive Renault Clio V6’s widow maker traits, with the heavy engine on the once more and lightweight entrance end resulting in understeer which, immediately, turns into snap oversteer. The Golf was created combining parts like a rear axle from Lamborghini, a floor plan from an Audi, and an engine from Bentley. With a bit additional enchancment work… correctly, who’s conscious of. As excellent as this bespoke Golf GTI was, only one unit was ever made.