Civic Hatch With Rear-Mounted 7.0-Liter Oldsmobile V8 Is Both Crazy and Cool
Vintage V8-powered Civic hatch, um, pickup is certainly sketchy, but we also wouldn’t mind driving it.
The Civic hatch isn’t really a hatch anymore, as its rear section has been chopped off, making it more of a pickup truck than anything else. But that space isn’t used for hauling mulch from the local big box store. Rather, it holds a very unique engine that powers the econobox – a 7.0-liter Oldsmobile V8 taken from a Toronado, which was of course a front-wheel-drive vehicle.
When new, this large V8 was rated to produce a healthy 385 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque, but that’s because it had to move around a vehicle that weighed 4,500 pounds. The Civic, well, it’s quite a bit lighter than that, making this one heck of a little hot rod. It also appears to be driving the rear wheels, as we can see the transaxle located behind the engine, as well as the CVs.
The engine is covered in a homemade cage of sorts that’s probably intended to replace the structural rigidity lost by chopping the rear portion of the hatch off. That gives us a clear view of the big American V8, which is flanked by a pair of mufflers and what appears to be tires covered by Jeep Cherokee fender flares. The exhaust exits via cutouts just in front of those flares, and there’s a scoop mounted up top to feed the air to the cooling system.
This Civic hatch can be best described as “business up front, party in the back,” as the rest of the car just looks like a regular old version of itself. It’s a truly bizarre visual experience, but at the same time, we can’t help but want to drive it. We imagine that this hatch, er, pickup is a total hoot to tool around town in, even if it’s a bit sketchy in every conceivable way.
Photos: Jared Parsley for Like Photoshop, But With Welding
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