First the Garage 54 ENG team bolted two inline-fours together to create a custom straight-eight in a display of wrenching wackiness. Then the mechanical madmen added another motor to make a twelve-cylinder. But now, for a reason that only the car gods can understand, they bolted on another engine, creating an absurd line of bolted-together four-cylinders that form an inline-16.
I don’t even know what to say at this point. I thought the straight-eight was epic enough. They could have just stopped there, and I’d still have considered them automotive heroes. Then Garage 54 ENG surprised me with the twelve, and now that there’s a 16 cylinder, all future extensions of this giant inline beast will no longer astonish me (but they’ll continue to entertain me to no end).
Like on the straight eight and straight-12, it looks like Garage 54 ENG used some square tubing to build a structure to hold the fourth motor, this time right above the suspension subframe that extends what looks like six or so feet in front of the car. Then they welded the third engine’s (third from the firewall) crankshaft damper to a clutch pressure plate, which they bolted up to the fourth motor at the front.
Even though the performance results of the inline-12 weren’t particularly good, the part of the video where Vlad, the host, gets his assistant to sit in the back of the Lada to pull a separate throttle cable to open up the butterflies on a few of the motors, is simply incredible. As is the part where the two distributor caps fall off.
Never stop adding motors, Vlad. Never stop.