Today we'll be covering a European car powered by twelve cylinders displacing four liters. While you might imagine something exotic, Italian, and mid-engined...that is, until it's revealed that those twelve cylinders are spread across three engines.
At this point your mental image might shift in the direction of some wild YouTube antics, and you'd be right. Instead of being "exotic, Italian, and mid-engined," it's "weird, Russian, and front-heavy." The video comes to us from Garage 54, translated into English to make it easier to follow along with.
Apparently, the Lada used in this video had already had two engines fitted. Now, a third one will be used to make the Lada even, um, Lada-er?
The Lada's massive proboscis, made from a network of square tubing, now houses a trio of 1.3 liter Lada four-cylinder engines. The radiator, housed roughly half a car-length in front of its original position, now has a pair of wheels underneath it to keep the car from performing a permanent endo.
To offset the extra pair of front wheels, Garage 54 doubled up on the rear wheels dually pickup-style for a grand total of four studded snow tires. The result is prodigious traction and surprisingly quick acceleration.
The bizarre-looking Lada is properly quick now. We're not talking supercar territory, but it's faster than a Lada has any right to be. Reaching 60 miles per hour in 5.4 seconds, it's as fast as a Subaru WRX. Of course, it doesn't exactly handle like a sports car, either, with those front wheels sticking way out and doing nothing. If we could humbly offer one suggestion to the Garage 54 guys: if you go for four, put the next one in the trunk!
