Home-Built Lotus Formula 3 Car Replica Is Street-Legal But Costs a Whopping $80,000
Would you rather have this or a decently optioned C8 Corvette?
Sure, you might have seen a street-legal NASCAR tear up public roads before, but what about an open-wheel Formula 3 car that's lighter than a Fiat 500 and powered by a superbike engine? Well, this garage-built Lotus replica is sort of that, and for the questionable price of $80,000, it can be yours.
Listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace and located in North Hollywood, this creation is said to be an "all custom" job that mimics a 1990 F3 racer. It's built upon steel tube frame architecture with cantilever suspension and, perhaps most importantly, there's a 200-horsepower Kawasaki ZX14R engine mounted in the middle.
The machine does feature race-car-like aluminum bodywork with aerodynamic-friendly wings at the front and rear, as well as sidepods that direct airflow and help push it all toward the ground. To make it road legal, it has "fenders" that cover the tops of the tires and provide mounting points for turn indicators. Teensy headlights have been installed at the front, which gives the replica a smashing Nigel Thornberry vibe.
In true single-seater fashion, the cockpit is cramped but does feature a tiny windshield, if you can call it that. All of this has been done so that you can pummel your local road course with a peaky powerband and spot-on handling before driving it home for dinner—just hopefully not in the rain. That said, we'd make sure the racing harnesses are up-to-snuff to avoid any nasty injuries in the event of a wreck.
The seller brags that the car will pass California state inspection and is, luckily, SMOG-exempt.
Whether or not anyone will find this Formula car worthy of $80,000 is beyond our range of estimation, but it's at least unique—we'll give it that.
