Austin Mini With Yamaha R1 Engine Swap Is One Serious Little Brit

How do you turn an iconic British economy car into a serious FWD performance machine? From the looks of this Mini currently listed on Ebay it appears a very good answer to that question involves stuffing a 170hp engine from a Yamaha R1 underneath the hood of the tiny car.

According to the listing for this 1970 Austin Mini, there is a British company specializes in repurposing the high revving engine and sequential transmission from an R1 motorcycle as Mini power in the style seen here. The seller claims 40 Yamaha powered Minis have been built, but this is the first running and driving example in the US.

We can't even imagine exactly how much fun the rev happy engine of the R1 is in the sub 1500lb Mini but we would absolutely love to find out. Listening to the seller's description of the driving experience is enough to sell us—

"The car is the fastest FWD car I've ever been in. The butt pucker factor is HIGH once you get above 7000 rpms and it will stretch its legs all the way to 12,500rpm."

Certainly the kind of experience we're looking for from a FWD compact car.

It should come as no surprise that a wild Mini with this much custom work done with it is going to have a hefty price tag attached to it. Although we're hardly experts on the Mini market, we know the $33,000 asking price is pretty steep even for one this awesome. Further down in the description the asking price does drop to a more reasonable $25,000 although we aren't sure if its supposed to be in there.

Pricey or not, we imagine regardless of whatever the next owner eventually pays a few redline blasts down the highway in this wild Mini will erase any lingering traces of buyer's remorse.

Hat tip to UW Huskies – HuckNroller!
[Ebay]