The original Mini is still one of the automotive benchmarks for a lightweight streetcar. It was so good that even James Hunt’s career began to ride with her round Snetterton. Aside from its four-weight ethos, what if you swapped a Kawasaki Ninja engine in the middle, converted it to rear-wheel drive, and added larger tires at all four corners?
As it turns out, Adam from AMT Machine Shops stopped asking her and found out exactly what it would be like. Based out of Vancouver, BC, he wanted his Mini to stand out from the crowd, and wow he nailed it. Bonkers powerplant alongside, the car is equipped with flared fenders that can place an RWB Porsche in male accompaniment, with a rear spoiler looking at home in the wells of a World Time Attack event.
Moving on to the obvious feast of the car is a Kawasaki Ninja engine in the middle. Since the original Mini has been starved for space as it is, the guys from AMT had to get a little creative when throwing in the new powerplant. With rear-facing placement, there is no longer a firewall that separates the passengers from the heat and noise that you would generally never worry about. Let it sing his song in the back also means that under the hood lies the fuel tank.
Instead of getting a gearbox that could control the power of the motorcycle engine, AMT Adam chose to keep the existing Ninja unit. The car also holds the existing dash of the Kawasaki bike to hold tabs on vital signs. As if it could not get wilder, the car also has a hydraulic handbrake, because why not?
In a perfect world we would like to add a GP shifter for seamless shifting, but we get it, this thing is not a MotoGP machine on four wheels. If a car could capture the essence of James Hunt, we think this one would tick all the boxes.
