Did you hear about the Mini Moke with a 454 hp Maserati V-8 engine crammed under its teeny hood? It’s not a hoax. This is the wild, some would say “bonkers” creation of French customizer Ludovic Lazareth, whose Annecy-based Lazareth Auto-Moto has a habit of building outrageous motorized devices.
Did we mention his four-wheeled flying motorcycle with aviation-grade gas turbines on each wheel? Or his $220,000, Maserati V-8–powered LM847 motorcycles? Then there’s the amphibious version of the oh-so-British Moke that Lazareth has been building since 2017. Powered by a 400 cc motorcycle engine, it has a top speed of 55 mph on land, with a more-leisurely 3 mph on the water. He produces around 10 per year, each priced from $27,000.
For Mr. Lazareth’s latest, he took one of the bare-aluminum Moke “Amphibie” bodies and a Maserati V-8 and was somehow able to shoehorn the thankfully light and compact, Ferrari-built 4.7-liter V-8, usually seen in Maserati’s swoopy GranTurismo coupe and convertible, into the Moke‘s stubby snout. He then paired that with Maserati’s six-speed Cambiocorsa transmission and steering column.
Weighing only 1,870 pounds, the vehicle produces 454 hp and 383 ft lbs of torque. Photo: Courtesy of Lazareth Auto-Moto.
What must have made it all even more challenging was that Lazareth’s Moke is a short-wheelbase, two-seat homage to the original four-seat version that was built between 1964 and 1968.
See this Frankenstein-esque creation in the metal and you can’t help but grin. Rolling on towering 17-inch rims—the original Moke had 10-inch ones—the vehicle looks like an oversized roller skate, or go-kart on steroids.
Considering that the entire package tips the scales at a mere 1,870 pounds and produces 383 ft lbs of torque channeled to the rear wheels, performance has to be insane. Sadly, Lazareth isn’t disclosing any acceleration data just yet.
A Maserati 4.7-liter V-8 engine is mated to the Italian marque’s six-speed Cambiocorsa transmission. Photo: Courtesy of Lazareth Auto-Moto.
What the Mini V8 M, as Lazareth Auto-Moto titles it, does share with the original Moke is the austerity of its cabin. Two, thinly padded seats straddle a huge transmission tunnel. The only instrumentation is a teeny speedometer.
The lack of pretty much any safety feature means that this little monster is far from street legal. That said, we can think of a number of enthusiasts who would love to thrash it around their private estates, or showcase it at their local Cars & Coffee.
The only instrumentation is a speedometer. Photo: Courtesy of Lazareth Auto-Moto.
While the Lazareth Auto-Moto website talks of “price on request,” we’re told on good authority that the conversation would start at around $130,000. One thing’s for sure—it would make one heck of a golf cart.
