The Lowdown:

Back in early 2021, we were approached by the BBC to help build a couple of vehicles for a new BBC Three show called  Gassed Up hosted by MOBO award-winning rapper Mist. Naturally, we jumped at the chance.

We took a kids Porsche electric toy car and turned it into this wide-body motorbike engined Drift beast,  ready for Mist to take on a Drift prepared MR2 driven by my Corries Ryan Thomas.  

The series first airs on BBC Three at 9 pm on Wed Feb 16th, 2022, if you are a petrol head you will love it.

The plan:

Bodywork: Widen and Stretch Kids Electric toy car shell, fiberglass, and spray
Mechanical: Modify and tune a 5-speed motorbike engined Go-Kart to make it easier to drift

Kicking the project off, the BBC supplied us with the electric Porsche toy car, and it would have been rude not to give it a good thrashing around the barn! Well, it was getting chopped up after all. Next up we located a good donor kart that already came with a motorbike engine we coupled that with a 5-speed box and then cut into the chassis to give the kart more steering lock to help it drift.

The Kart also had running problems so we stripped the engine down, changed all the gaskets, and gave it a good service.

Next up Rich removed the toy car shell and started to cut into the panels and start the widening and stretching process.

With the shell stretched out and widened to fit the kart chassis it was then fixed in place and the panels that now had a massive gap between them filled with fiberglass.

Once the fiberglass had set The kart then headed over to our bodyshop where a layer of filler was applied and then sanded back, the kart has really started to take shape. A small hole was then cut out of the back panel to allow the exhaust gases to exit.

Rich has rerouted the exhaust to come out the center of the back panel, because of this and the other running issue that we sorted out, we felt it was only right to hire out Amering raceway to give the kart a proper shakedown. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and the kart run very well.

After the shakedown, we added some grip take to the pedals and floor as we found that sometimes your foot would slip slightly and we can’t have that happening when Mist is drifting the Kart, we want him to win after all. Next up the Shell was prepped and painted.

As we are fitting a shell on the kart overheating could be an issue due to reduced airflow to the radiator, so we fitted an extra fan to help. With the shell now ready we booked out an afternoon at Traqs go-kart track in  Croyden to test the kart with the shell on. The BBC met us there along with Ryan Taylor to do some filming and see the kart for the first time.

Back at the shop all that was left to do was spray some green detailing and apply vinyl decals and the kart was then loaded into the van and headed to Birmingham to hand over to the BBC ready for the final drift competition.

To see the final results head over to the project here.