It’s very hard to beat the Goodwood polyurethane mufflers at the Festival of Speed because they’re totally unsuitable for traffic unless you have a full car around. So, Powerflex thought they were making something totally crazy out of the R56 Mini Cooper.
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Gallery: Mini V8 and rear wheel
They certainly didn’t want to suck on the 1.6 Prince, so they preferred to grab the E92’s 4.0-liter V8 intake block, which is more than 400 hp even in factory form. The engine and dual-clutch seven-speed automatic transmission couldn’t reach the Mini’s nose crosswise, so they were more likely to be loaded the way nature created them, along its length.
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Gallery: Mini V8 and rear wheel
To do this, the Mini floorboard had to be completely flipped, since there was originally no full-wheel version of it. That is why the car was installed on a Subaru WRX STi chassis, which also had room for a cardan shaft and a differential. The first chassis is a one-of-a-kind custom MacPherson, of course with Powerflex polyurethane mufflers.
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Gallery: Mini V8 and rear wheel
Carbon elements are ubiquitous and fairly piped inside, and two Cobra Motorsport racing seats are also included. An ordinary pedal machine and a dashboard familiar from racing machines. They’ve flipped over and stuffed the split-set location in the middle with buttons and the square seat cover also shows how much they added to the original atmosphere. The car, named Vini, weighs 1.3 tons and the whole thing looks like he desperately wants a racetrack day.
The car is strikingly widened at the plastic bends, with gold rims and Toyo Proxes R888R tires underneath. However, the whole thing looks completely normal, preferring just a better looking hot hatch. It has become a very cool machine.
