Faced with a blank canvas of a car, very few create true art. But this Range Rover, with a six-speed manual out of a BMW M6, some brakes from a Porsche and some brakes from a Genesis, and a turbo for a snout, is definitely art.
Most modified cars annoy me. They’re all boring and uninspired. Oh, you threw an air filter in your Scion tC? Wow. You lifted your Jeep? Maybe they’ll give you a medal. A Range Rover this Frankenstein’d, though, is as original as every lame “tuner” car on Craigslist claims to be.
Read this description from its Craigslist ad as if it was a little placard next to a beautiful impressionist masterpiece in a glorious gilded frame:
It has an M6 Manual 6spd with a matching M6 diff, both low miles, Porsche Cayenne 6 piston calipers up front & Genesis big calipers in the rear. Borg Warner style top mount & only running 5lbs of boost. My buddy built this Rover & has had this setup for the past 5 years running reliably! If you’re familiar with these 4.4’s, u know they can take much more abuse, he just built it this way for looks, some boost & to have something different.
Who doesn’t love an M6 transmission with a matching differential all sutured up to a big SUV body? Who doesn’t love the brakes of a Porsche Cayenne and also the brakes of a Genesis?
If the engine is the original one in this 2005 Rangie, it should be a BMW-sourced M62 V8, which did briefly see a turbo version in the Bentley Arnage of the late 1990s, developed by Cosworth. And I’m sure this one is built to the same exacting engineering specifications as the legendary racing firm.
Sarcasm aside, critiquing this artwork in such a manner is gauche. You don’t come at Leonardo Da Vinci’s helicopter and declare it “dumb” because it wasn’t developed by Cosworth, either. The beauty of it is that the concept even exists at all.
I mean, just look at this oddly phallic shifter rising ram-rod straight out of the central tunnel:
Look at this turbo boost gauge, placed just so:
Look at the power snail peeking out from the hood, and also an angry Jeep complete with its own hood-snail:
How much power does it make? Why would anyone do this?
(I’ve reached out to the owner to ask, of course, and will update if I hear back.)
These, my friends, are the questions of cretins, however. This Range Rover is an example of the sort of fun and wild experimentation we should be seeing the world over. Too many people try to make their cars an extension of themselves, to make themselves look good, to make their car resemble the person they wish they could be.
But this Range Rover? This Range Rover, it exists for no reason other than itself.
And that is where real art lies.
Also, the air suspension is disabled because one of the struts went bad and its MAF sensor is about to go. But $4,500 takes it, as the seller says.
Not a bad price to pay for genius.