It's tiny, it's yellow, and it's a distinctly vintage hatchback. No, it's not a Mini; it's a Honda N600 from the early 1970s. Originally, it came with a tiny little 600cc-ish kei car engine that, on a good day, under ideal conditions, made about 40 entire horsepower.
Lovely to look at; less lovely to drive. Maybe even to the point of frustration, depending on your particular temperament and given level of patience on a specific day.
But that's all about to change at the Cars and Cameras garage. Every year, they gather a bunch of friends for a challenge they very simply call Build Week. In it, they attempt to complete an entire insane project in just one week, working flat out through the whole thing to get it done. There are breaks, sure; but the hope is that, by assembling an entire team of consummate DIYers, they can get heaps of work done in far less time than it would take with fewer hands on deck.
For 2025, they've decided to take this humble little Honda N600 and stuff a different sort of Honda engine inside. What engine? It's a CBR1000RR superbike mill. Which means, among other things, that it was never going to be a straight swap for that dinky little N600 engine. They're converting it to rear wheel drive, and locating a bunch of things like the fuel tank, radiator, and battery in the former engine bay up front to help balance the weight of the finished project.
Of course, there's also the small issue of the CBR1000RR engine making around 170-ish horsepower. That's more than four times the original horsepower that the N600 was built to handle, and they'll be putting the engine in the rear instead of the front. So clearly, a bunch of supporting mods need to be made so the little kei car doesn't twist itself into a delicious soft pretzel in motion.
It's a veritable hodgepodge of parts they're putting together here, including the rear axle from a Mazda Miata, some suspension bits off a Polaris RZR, and a few other things they pull in to make it all come together. Since the donor N600 came from Texas, it's remarkably rust free for its age, but that doesn't stop them from needing to slice up the rear to get the engine and suspension to fit where they need to go.
How insane do you think it's going to be when this build is done? They're planning to take it to the Virginia International Raceway go-kart track for a rip once it's complete. Would you like to drive this thing, or are they out of their minds? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
