Putting a motorcycle engine in a car is nothing new. It’s been going on for decades and we’ve also seen some incredible preparations lately. In this case, this Toyota MR2 with a Honda CBR1000R engine is also an incredible preparation, but not because of how elaborate it is but because of how poorly made it is.
In this case it is the youtuber The Bearded Mechanic who found this curious piece practically abandoned. It is the cheap version to enter the circuit with the car in the United States. And there, with almost anything you can get into the circuit. The history of careerists on the other side of the Atlantic is very different from that of Europeans.
The fact is that a friend of Craig’s, his real name, contacted him and told him that if he could get it up and running he could keep it. So since the engine is a Honda and Honda is Honda, after a checkup, battery and a little pampering, the Honda CBR1000R engine came back to life.
From there it’s a different story. There are a lot of problems with the car, which has been built in a rather shoddy way. It’s really hard to understand the amount of courage you have to have to get on a track with an engine that we’re going to assume is securely anchored right next to you, and surrounded by metal everywhere. What could possibly go wrong?
Putting a Honda CBR1000R engine in a car and making everything work properly is no easy task.
In fact, the handling problems are obvious from the start, as is a “hidden defect” that the Toyota MR2 equipped with the Honda CBR1000R engine has had. To transmit power to the wheels, a chain was used, which in turn passed the chain to the drive shafts, and the chain was not able to withstand this stress. In fact, in its glory days, the MR2 had to use three new chains per race weekend.
And yes, this thing with an unnecessary spoiler, tacky and made with warehouse shelving profiles and other metal waste, lived in better times even though it may seem difficult.
Would you ride it? Would you keep it if it were given to you? Would you race it? Craig’s answer to all of them has been yes, and in fact they will be racing at the end of the year. We wish them the best of luck, because something tells us that they are going to need it…
