It’s not uncommon for a home mechanic swap an engine in a shed. But a U.K. man has taken things a step further by literally swapping an engine into his shed.
The last time we heard from Kevin Nicks, he had set the land speed record for a shed—96.8 mph, which is blisteringly fast for a large, blocky object made of wood. But Nicks wasn’t happy with that result, so he went back to his, uh, shed, to make some improvements to his shed.
Given the presumed difficulty of changing a shed’s chassis, the record-setting hut is still based on a 1999 Volkswagen Passat. But Nicks has had a go at improving the shed’s drivetrain, swapping out the Passat’s 200-horsepower, 2.8-liter engine in favor of a 4.2-liter V-8 from an Audi RS4. While he was at it, Nicks treated the V-8 to a Stage 2 tune from MRC, bumping power from a stock 420 horsepower to a shed-motivating 450 horsepower. The enterprising engineer even transferred over the Audi’s all-wheel-drive system.
Of course no project is complete without some proper shakedown testing, so Nicks took his shed to the Santa Pod Raceway for a quarter-mile drag race. The shed managed to get down the racetrack without spilling a single flower pot, crossing the finish line in 15.49 seconds at 86 mph. Those figures might be average by car standards, but they are truly impressive for a shed.
It should also be noted that during the recorded run there was a 30 mph headwind, which is hurricane-force for a vehicle with the aerodynamic properties of a two-story building. Once the winds calmed down, Nicks managed to post a much faster time of 14.6 seconds.