The 6 Best Engine Swaps We’ve Ever Seen

10 November 2015 Redazione Supercars Lounge

Today’s lesson: “Never underestimate something small and very noisy”, it could hide a nice surprise.

The “engine swaps” mania represents a careful mechanical intervention by which you replace the whole engine block putting one of a completely different car, of course much more powerful. It is not common in Europe, especially if compared to the US and Japan. So we picked the 6 that we think are the best swaps ever, in the great majority of cases performed by a single person, maybe simply helped by a brother or the best friend who, armed with patience and a lot of passion, now have in the garage an authentic bombs on wheels. Exterior look can also be changed, especially if the larger engine requires that, or it can remain unchanged, going to leave stunned the unlucky guy that moments before snubbed you because you’re at the wheel of a humble Ford Ka.

• Lotus Exige with BMW M5 V10 engine, grounding 507hp on a lightweight weapon
• Fiat 500 with 580hp Lamborghini V12: one-off
• Ford Transit with 542hp Jaguar XJ200 V6, used as a test mule by Jaguar itself
• Smart ForTwo with turbocharged Hayabusa 1.300cc motorcycle engine
• Ford Ka with 300hp Cosworth 2.0cc turbocharged engine
• Mazda MX-5 with a massive V8