A father and son drag racing team in Australia have transformed a 1965 Honda S600 coupe into something other drivers should fear at the strip. The original engine is gone, and somehow these guys manage to cram a 3.2-liter Toyota 2JZ inline-six under the hood. There's no room in there for the gigantic 88 millimeter turbo, so it sits outside the car. The massive part dominates the view outside the windshield.
The little Honda weighs around 2,425 pounds (1,100 kilograms), and we suspect much of that weight is the engine. According to the owner, the powerplant makes "a little over" 1,200 horsepower at the wheels when running on the dyno, and that's with the turbo at 32 psi (2.2 bar).
The owner says that his best run ever is a pass in 7.7 seconds. The big challenge of driving this little car is keeping it going straight. The engine's power has no problem lifting the front wheels off the ground, and the Honda seems like a real handful to maintain control. The driver nearly hits the wall during one pass in this video.
According to the owner, he drives the wild machine to entertain people, not for outright victory. He has no problem letting smoke billow from the tires to get the crowd's attention. It would be hard not to pay attention when this little oddity rolled up to the starting lights.
However, when everything comes together perfectly, this little coupe becomes a rocket ship. You can also see it doing a 7.96-second run in this clip.
Don't feel too bad about this family cutting up a rare Honda because this drag racer comes from a bare S600 shell. The owner also has a factory original example.
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