Reader, do you need more whimsy in your life? Are you all work and no play, Jack well on his way to becoming a dull boy? Well, allow me to introduce some much-needed excitement into your life. This is a shopping kart with a drag car’s seat, off-road tires, long-travel suspension, and only the finest of Harbor Freight engines directly behind the driver. It’s a vehicle that’s almost certainly good at absolutely nothing, and you need it desperately.
Most ATVs and UTVs aren’t made of shopping carts, because shopping carts aren’t exactly famed for their torsional rigidity. Most go-karts are built for asphalt, not dirt. This beauty bucks all of those conventions, because it’s not made for practicality or lap records. It’s made because the parts exist, because the dimensions more or less work out, and because it could be made. That’s the attitude that brought us to the Moon, and you’ll feel like you’re over it once you slip behind the wheel of this shopping cart.
Whether this is a go kart, an ATV, or a secret third thing is left as an exercise for the reader
I’ve actually built a kart with some similar mechanics before, with big off-road wheels on a rear axle driven by a chain and a Harbor Freight Predator 212 engine. Mine also ran into the same problem this kart has: No brakes. There’s a disc on that rear axle, but no caliper in sight and no left pedal for the driver to press. You can fix that, though. That’ll be part of the fun of owning this UTV shopping kart — getting your knuckles greasy to make it work.
If you need some more fun in your life, if you’re facing a critical dearth of whimsy, this shopping cart is the solution to your woes. Taking a vehicle that’s built badly, and making it do the thing it’s bad at, is universally a joy — it’s the reason a slow car fast is more fun than a fast car slow. Buy yourself a gas-powered off-road shopping cart for $950, and never feel dull again.
