The world is full of wacky builds but few are as nutty as what you’re about to see here. What you’re looking at here is an eight-wheeled sportscar powered by a pair of twin-rotor rotary engines combined into one.
This car initially rose to fame over a decade ago when it came up for sale on eBay. Its striking appearance and weird engine setup was the subject of many headlines, including one by us. The car was purchased by none other than the famous 24 Hours Of Lemons racer, Speedycop. You may know him for his wacky vehicles like the Spirit of Lemons Cessna-bodied racecar.
Speedycop brought the eight-wheeled monster to Angel Motorsports in Chesapeake, Virginia, for its team to revive the one-off octo-wheeled creation. Angel Motorsports is known for working on rotary-powered vehicles and this car is the subject of one of the team’s latest videos:
Speedycop believes the original builder was an aircraft engineer. They went nuts building the car from scratch with heavy gauge tubular steel and thick fibreglass. Everything weighs a ton and you can even walk on the fibreglass without damaging it.
It gets crazier from there as the four rear wheels are powered, making it four-wheel-drive. Our previous post mentioned the car was also equipped with suspension parts from different manufacturers:
In addition to its welder’s grip of the obvious, the car’s mechanical parts list includes two “GM-Style” front suspensions, two Jaguar suspensions out back, the rotaries “put together” and a hodgepodge of other pieces, including a few Corvette parts.
Sadly, Speedycop says the builder died before the project could be finished. It ran when he bought it but lacked a proper interior and its fuelling system was incredibly outdated.
Angel Motorsports plan on dumping the old carburetors and wasted spark ignition and upgrading to direct injection.
As for the engine? It’s a work of art. The large unit consists of two Mazda 12A rotary engines connected together with an adaptor. One of the engines has a modified crankshaft with a spline that connects to the other engine’s crankshaft.
I love it! To me it sort of looks like a discount version of the Batmobile from the 1989 Batman movie.
Angel Motorsports plans on finishing what the original builder and Speedycop didn’t. They’ll fix and paint the car, then turn it into a nutty torque monster. Check out their video to truly appreciate this masterpiece.