Awesome Garage 54

You know those toy cars that move using a flywheel? The car-chopping madmen of Garage 54 took another rusted-out old Lada and fitted it with such a mechanism. They connected its engine and transmission to the flywheel via a differential, pulley, and belts. After giving the car some gas, let it coast to see how far it would go under flywheel power.

The guys at Garage 54 seem to have an infinite supply of junker Ladas lying around their workshop. In this video, they took one of the notoriously bad Russian compact cars and cut away half of its body and chassis. By keeping the engine, transmission, driveshaft, axles, and exhaust system in place, it’s still fully driveable.

The guys at Garage 54 are usually doing unnatural things to cheap Russian cars. This time they decided to do something completely different and put a bunch of time and energy into casting and assembling a completely transparent 4-cylinder engine block. It looks fantastic, but can they actually get it to run?

Most gas-powered cars use a large, 12-volt battery to start their engines. The guys from Garage 54 previously figured out it was possible to start a car with 1000 AA batteries, but this time they conducted a little experiment to see how few of the 1.5-volt batteries you could get away with. They should try it again with rechargeables.

We’ve had the pleasure of driving a customized Nissan Altima with snow tracks. This build from Garage 54 is the low-budget equivalent of that, using a janky old Lada and fitting it with dual rear tires wrapped in metal tracks. It’s definitely not the most agile vehicle in the snow, but it is able to drive on some sloppy powder.

The guys from Garage 54 have done all kinds of stupid things to Lada cars. For this experiment, they wanted to see if they could turn one of the old Russian jalopies into an improvised helicopter by connecting its drivetrain to a propeller on its roof. Place your bets now on whether this thing will ever get off the ground.

Normally, a vehicle’s suspension sits between the frame and the wheels to absorb shocks. After seeing a vintage photograph of a car wheel with springs built into it, the car hackers at Garage 54 built their own to see how it would affect ride quality. It sounded like a busted shopping cart after the rubber came off.

The guys from Garage 54 are in the business of doing stupid things to cars. Recently, they chopped off the rear axle and one wheel from another old Lada then reconnected it directly to the drive shaft. It’s now a vomit-inducing donut machine – though it can never drive in a straight line again.

So what could be better than a crappy old Italian car with eight wheels? How about an even crappier old Russian car with six more wheels? Thanks to the insane minds at Garage 54, your dream has come true – assuming that dream includes six axles and giant tractor wheels on front.

We didn’t have the patience to wait for the English translation of this Garage 54 video, because it’s too ridiculous to pass up. Stick around and you’ll see them replace the chassis of their see-through Lada with a wonky homemade platform and tall springs that lift the car’s body about 3 feet off the ground. Body roll, anyone?

The guys from Russian car hacking channel Garage 54 have outdone themselves with this crazy build. After cutting the driver’s side off one Lada and the passenger side off another, they tinkered with the mechanicals and welded them together. The result is a ridiculous extra-wide Lada that needs two drivers to steer. Part 2 here.

The guys at Russia’s Garage 54 have done some pretty insane things by hacking apart cheap cars. In this experiment, they wanted to see if they could harness the torque generated by the axle of a Lada and fling objects with a lever attached to its rear wheel. We bet it would be more fun to launch the car.

The guys from Russia’s Garage 54 are usually trashing cars for fun and profit. But in this video, they decided to build a form of transportation from scratch – a flying carpet-slash-hovercraft. It lifts off the ground using 10 car heater fans powered by a pair of big batteries. It looks like a ton of fun gliding across the snow.

(PG-13: Language) Hydro-dipping is the process of adhering a film to the surface of an object by floating it in a bath of water and adding an activation agent. We’ve seen it done to shoes, guitars, and helmets, but the guys at Russia’s Garage 54 tried to dip an entire car. Unfortunately, even the best-laid plans can go very wrong.

Now that the guys at Russia’s Garage 54 are done with their headlight-covered Lada, they decided to remove the bulbs from the compact car. Of course, now they’ve got a whole bunch of holes in the sheet metal, so they decided to go all-in on the look, resulting in a car that looks like a block of Swiss cheese on wheels.