A Russian teen converted his old, beat-up Lada to drive backward and managed to get a shoutout from Elon Musk for his trouble.
We’ve seen a lot of crazy Russian car videos, but this one might just be the craziest of them all.
An 18-year-old Russian gearhead has swapped axles on his old Lada so that the rear is the front and the front is the rear. And it was a lot more involved than that: he actually removed the engine from beneath the hood of the car and installed it in the trunk. The space where the engine was is now just open air, and the rear passenger seats have been turned around to be the driver’s row.
The front seats (which would be the rear seats now) have been removed. Probably to make room for the engine, which now mostly occupies the spot where the rear seats would have been on the original car.
Confusing? A little.
The enterprising young Russian then decided to take his Lada on the open road and confuse the hell out of everyone around him. It certainly looked like this Lada was driving everywhere backward, but it was actually driving forwards--its own special brand of forward.
As of today, the Twitter video has been viewed 1.55 million times since being posted to the social media platform on Monday. It initially even tagged Tesla CEO Elon Musk for his opinion, with the teen writing, "And how do you like this, @elonmusk?"
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Musk responded with "хаха офигенно" or "Haha awesome" in Russian.
Unfortunately, things didn’t end quite so well for our Russian gearhead. According to the Associated Press, local police forces confiscated the converted Lada and slapped the teen with a hefty fine. Apparently, he was driving without insurance, and it’s also illegal to drive on public roads backward using an illegally retrofitted Lada.
But once he pays off his debt, we can’t wait to see what crazy thing this teen does to his next car.
NEXT: RUSSIAN DRIVER REPLACES WINTER TIRES WITH HUNDREDS OF NAILS WITH SURPRISING RESULTS