Check out this Fiat 500 swapped with the engine from a 2012 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R sportbike.

Small cars aren’t exactly popular over in North America. Sure, we can technically find a Fiat 500 floating around somewhere on American roads, but we’re not exactly a nation of small car owners.

That’s not true in Europe, where tiny roads and even tinier towns are home to all sorts of tiny cars. The Fiat 500 is one such car that can be found in almost every nation in Europe, expertly navigator cobblestone streets at speeds that make you wonder why you don’t just get out and walk.

This particular Fiat 500 (also called the Fiat Cinquecento, or Type 170) is from 1995, an era where the subcompact Italian-designed cars were made exclusively in Poland. Normally it was a front-engined, front-wheel-drive, 3-door hatchback with 4 seats for passengers, although in reality you really only had room for two passengers and a back bench for some groceries.

Watch: Fiat 500 With Kawasaki Motorcycle Engine Makes A Lot Of Noise
via NM2255 HD on YouTube

It was also underpowered, to say the least. A 700cc 2-cylinder engine produced less than 31 horsepower. Top speed is measured in miles per day rather than miles per hour.

However, this Fiat 500 is no ordinary urban mobility vehicle. You may have noticed that the rear hatch has been replaced by an engine cover made out of carbon fiber. The rear windows have also been replaced with carbon cutouts, as has the roof with its highly obvious carbon fiber air scoop.

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Things get even stranger on the inside. The entire interior has been ripped out and replaced with a roll cage, a single carbon fiber racing seat with a 5-point harness, a racing steering wheel, and a single small LCD display to tell the driver what gear they’re in.

But the real magic is happening in the back. What was once a front-engine, FWD car is now a mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive maniac thanks to a donor engine from a 2012 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14R sportbike.

The engine size has now doubled to 1.4-L, with power skyrocketing to 250 horses. And because it’s a motorcycle engine, it now revs to a ludicrous 12,000 RPM.

This is engineering poetry, with the video providing a front-row seat to the utter lunacy of how it feels to drive this tiny Italian rocket.

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