Most powerful Mini yet with 3,500 bhp on tap

You can hear it now: you work for a company making slightly invisible products usually topped out with another manufacturer’s glossy body and want to shout about it. The boss says “make something wild and attention grabbing”. The result is baffling and downright stupid, but put it on display and….the public will love it, won’t they?

---

Having spotted something red and monstrous at the Goodwood Festival of speed, and realised that it was there just to draw attention without a modicum of reason or purpose. We were determined to walk past and move onto less vacuous aisles. But the mind-masters at Cummins diesel know better than us. You know how you can’t avoid looking into a seafront amusement arcade as you walk past, even if you loathe the things, well, we just couldn’t walk past either. Cummins 1 – YW 0.

The massive lump, designated QSK78 for the geeks amongst us, which is used to power mining industry dump trucks capable of carrying 360 tonnes, is a V18 monster with a capacity of 78 litres and uses no less than 12 turbochargers to develop 3,500 bhp and getting on for 14,000 Nm of torque (the original Mini made do with just 80!)

There’s just one little question we want to ask: We know Alex Ignossis designed one of the first modern unitary bodies, but just how does a mini pickup support an 11 ton engine? Ah, now look at the stand closely and see if there’s any daylight showing under the car. No? Guess what? There’s a massive backbone hidden under there, hence the light loading on the tyres! Look at this as froth and it’s mildly amusing, more art installation than custom car, but we’d rather see the humongous dumper truck it’s engine is lifted out of dwarfing adjacent stands. Now that would be fun!

---