The Austin Mini Burnout Muscle Car

By David Ashton

I always have a moan about non muscle car makes being labelled as muscle cars. However, I think we can make make an exception this time with this mini-me of muscle cars from Dario Gaiga. This is a 1977 Austin Mini made to be an Australian style burnout car (ala smoke, fire and no rear end left after the event). Admittedly, its only purpose is to burn out tires from now on, but I wouldn’t mind seeing what this can do down the dragstrip sporting a rather large parachute.

Some of you may be immediately thinking this is an abomination, the coolest or the most hilarious thing you’ve ever seen. Either way, why not shove the largest engine into the smallest car around and see what happens.

For some reason American engines and European cars seem to fit together. Carroll Shelby had the idea with the Cobra and now its the turn of the….err…Austin Mini.
If you’re not familiar with the Mini, it was first produced in 1959 and became a bit of a pop icon across Europe in the 1960s. Being only 3 inches long and tall, most of the native engines were under 1 Liter, but these things could turn and corner like nothing else. Maybe one of the reasons they did so well in rallying. If any of you have seen the original movie, ‘The Italian job’ this is pure Mini eye candy and shows what they were capable of.

These originals shouldn’t be confused with the newer BMW versions which have massively grown in size and should be really called the ‘Maxi’ if it wasn’t for the name association with very piss poor original Austin Maxi.

With such a diminutive car, the only logical option is to crowbar in the biggest displacement LS engine possible and add on an equally massive blower. This one is a 6v 71 blower, the intake is a Holley high ram base and everything runs off methanol. The diff. is out of a 70’s Cougar. So, lots of muscle car bits to underpin the mighty frame.

It’s also nice to see Dario has left the rust spots on the car as these things reacted to rain like papier-mâche. Still, low blow comments aside, this Mini is destined for constant rear end destruction and I think it’s fair to be able to class it as a mini muscle car in every sense. Check out some of the videos below of the Mini in action and the detailed build.
Michael Caine would be proud.

LS Fest West overview

A Mini burnout..?

If you want to find out more about Dario Gaiga and how he regularly tries to destroy the rear end of this Mini, check out his Facebook page here.

Overview of the Mini muscle build

 

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