The Sebring-Vanguard Comuta-Car was once the most popular electric car in the world. From 1974 to 1979 the Florida-based golf-cart-with-a-roof manufacturer pushed almost 4,500 of these cheese-wedge-shaped monstrosities into production to combat the rising price of fuel in a post-oil-embargo America. Each of these weird 1,300 pound two-seaters were equipped with an array of lead-acid batteries and a GE direct current electric motor capable of as much as six horsepower. This Kraft-singles-yellow example was hauled out of a barn by Vasily Builds and the electric gubbins were ganked out and replaced with a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle engine dramatically increasing the horsepower quotient. Hot damn!
Upping the horsepower in any car by a few thousand percent is going to be an exercise in ridiculousness, and this 170-ish horsepower fiberglass buggy is the epitome of wild. There’s a huge upgrade in speed and sound, but also in weight. Without a few hundred pounds of heavy lead batteries, this thing is probably skipping lunch away from being under 1,000 pounds. While it isn’t exactly hypercar levels of power, it’s significantly faster than it used to be before Vasily started monkeying with it. Do you know of any other Sebring-Vanguards capable of an 8-second run in the eighth mile?
One quick brick of cheddar
There’s nothing I love more than finding a new source of crazy hot rodding and uniquely ridiculous ingenuity. The social media algorithm delivered Vasily Builds into my eyeballs this week, and I’ve since become obsessed with this kid’s ability to make anything—a lawn tractor, quad, shifter cart or a jet boat—into a motorcycle-swapped death trap. The fabrication skills and insight this guy has will take him a long way, and I’ll now be watching the entire journey. You probably should, too. It’ll be worth your time.
Perhaps you’ll be inspired by this young hot rodder to get out and work on your own project cars. Maybe you can build something that will stand out even more than a wedge-shaped motorcycle-motored fiberglass golf cart. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.
