Speed Through Holiday Shopping in This Briggs & Stratton-Powered Grocery Kart

Get in, bud, we're going shopping karting.
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Dealing with the general public in crowded stores running low on stock is hellish in the best of times, and we can’t exactly call 2020 that. Holiday shopping this year is a nightmare like no year in living memory, and what most people want more than anything is a way to speed through it. And I may have just found a way to do so with a contraption for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Centennial, Colorado: A shopping go-kart.

This mall-terrorizing machine appears to be built from a combination of metal tubing, a miniature shopping cart basket, and a mishmash of normal kart components. Its construction doesn’t even distantly resemble that of a Sodikart or Tony Kart chassis, and those narrow tires are nowhere near racing kart spec. Suffice to say, this thing probably corners like… Well, a shopping cart with an adult sitting in it.

That’s not to say it’s slow, though. Open that hand paddle throttle attached to the wheel, and the seller says its 250cc Briggs & Stratton XR1150 Professional motor with its nine horsepower and 11.5 pound-feet of gross torque can push the kart up to 40 mph. It’s definitely fast enough to get you kicked out of Walmart, but only if the employees can be bothered to chase you down. Odds are, the joyride will only come to an end when you slide into a display after messing up a drift with that handbrake.

If a vehicle like this suddenly tops your Christmas shortlist, you’ll have to send the seller your best offer, as they don’t specify a price, and call the listing more of a “feeler post” than anything. The worst they can do, after all, is decline you with a Grinchy “ho-ho-no.”

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h/t Rafi Ward