What has two Hayabusa engines, weighs 600 kilos, and pumps out 380 horsepower? Well, this twin Hayabusa-powered Mini belonging to none other than Liam Doran, a professional world rallycross racing driver and four-time X Games medalist.
We’ve talked about this crazy custom Mini in the past and how it’s actually built to go racing in a pretty wild racing series called Autograss. Designed to push compact cars to their very limit, Autograss sees heavily modified cars like the Austin Mini, Peugeot 106, and Ford Ka slug it out on rally-cross-style circuits. A lot of these custom racers feature high-performance motorcycle engines, just like Liam’s Busa-powered Mini, so yeah, Autograss is pretty damn crazy.
To show us just how crazy this thing is, the folks over at the automotive YouTube channel Officially Gassed thought it would be a good idea to pit Doran’s Mini against a modified Ferrari 458 in a good old-fashioned drag race. It’s an odd matchup to say the least, and it’s obvious that these two vehicles couldn’t be more different from each other.
The custom Ferrari 458 is any car enthusiast's dream car. It’s slammed and has a set of fancy aftermarket wheels. It’s also rocking a Liberty Walk body kit to give it a wider, more low-slung stance—as if the stock 458 Italia body wasn’t already a head-turner. Under the hood, or rather, the trunk, is a 4.5-liter naturally aspirated V8 with a 180-degree crankshaft. This particular car is said to pump out a whopping 580 ponies.
Despite all that, Chris, the owner and driver of the Ferrari, was pretty certain that he was gonna get completely smashed by Liam Doran and his insane twin Hayabusa-powered Mini. Well, there’s really only one way to find out, isn’t there? It’s time to go racing.
The first round was a roll race with the Mini clearly getting the advantage at the start. I mean, it literally popped a frickin’ wheelie all while pulling away from the Ferrari at a neck-breaking pace. We can see Doran pushed back in his seat as the entire car points to the sky the moment he pins it. It’s absolutely nuts. Doran takes the win by about four car lengths… against a Ferrari 458. How wild is that?
The second round wasn’t all that different, either. The Mini immediately took the lead and crossed the finish line with a “huge bus length gap,” the ultimate Flex for a car that has no business having as much power as it has.
Up next, it was time for the standard drag race where both cars would launch from a dig and sprint to the quarter mile. Here, the Ferrari should, in theory, have the advantage as it has a bigger contact patch, a lower center of gravity, and not to mention, much more weight over the rear wheels.
Well, unfortunately for the Ferrari, it was absolutely smoked by the Mini which again, pulled a fat wheelie off the start with tires spinning up a cloud of smoke. It was like that scene in The Fast and The Furious where Toretto’s Charger did a wheelie all while doing a crazy burnout—something that was against the laws of physics, but in the case of Doran’s Busa-powered mini, completely a reality.
It’s safe to say that no matter what kind of race it was—be it a roll race or a traditional drag race—Doran’s Mini absolutely smoked the Ferrari. I’d love to see these two slug it out in a circuit race. Surely, the Ferrari would be able to make up some time in the corners.
Nevertheless, both these cars are sick and awesome in their own right. The Autograss Mini is nothing short of a purpose-built racing machine that can put some of the world’s best supercars to shame in a straight line. Meanwhile, the Ferrari is a street-legal supercar that’ll have all eyes on you no matter where you go.
And so, if you were to ask me which one I’d pick, well, I think I’d have to go for the Ferrari simply because it’s the more practical choice. Oh, and I like the color red.
