Someday, I’d like to buy me a new Toyota Prius.  You know, one of those little things that runs on both gas and electricity.  I’ll make sure it has the hybrid stickers on it and all. 

I don’t think I have the smarts to do what comes next, but I know my friend Larry does.  So, I’ll take it to him, and he’ll start turning his magic on it.

First, I’ll have him take shell, or cab, off the chassis.  Then, I’ll have him strip everything out of the frame, and start beefing everything up.  Because what comes next for that humble little frame is HUGE. 

Next, I’ll start visiting salvage yards until I find me a 6.4 powerstroke engine.  We’ll delete it, if it hasn’t been deleted already.  We’ll bore it out, say, maybe .30 over and rebuild with high compression pistons and head studs.  Just for fun, we’ll upsize the turbo and put a tune on the whole works. 

I’ll probably have to splurge on the next item and buy it new.  I doubt any salvage yard will have them used.  But we’ll need a racing transmission of some sort or other, ATS would be fine by me.  Now I know more than likely that engine and tranny, hooked together like they normally are, won’t fit lengthwise in that car.

In fact, because of the height and width of the engine, I’m guessing it will need to be mounted amidships. 

But Larry can make it all work and fit.  If he can take a Detroit truck engine, modify the frame and get it mounted in his old 4630 John Deere tractor, and all making it look factory when it was done, then he can do this.  And if he can take that same tractor and route the stack up the side and mount the hood of a 4960 so I couldn’t tell the difference until I was 10 feet away, then he can do this.

Once, when I was on his yard, I noticed the exhaust system on his ½ ton Chevy shortbed truck looked modified.  I told him I was going to roll under and take a look at it. 

I had never seen such a neat job, all ending with both exhaust tips exiting flush and perfectly centered on each side and out the back of his flat bed. 

I commented on the fine job.  He asked me if I noticed where he had shortened the frame.  I crawled under again.  I saw it then, and asked him why he had done that.  He said he wanted a shortbed 1 ton truck, so it was just a matter of getting it there. 

If he can do all that, he’ll be able to get this engine and tranny, or if he needs, a similar tranny mounted in that Prius. 

And the tranny will need to be built; I plan to push at least 800 hp through it when we are done.

I’m thinking we’ll leave the original tires on, even though they will definitely be undersized for what I have in mind.  But, I think Larry can somehow get power to all four tires (cause we’ll need too) instead of just the rear two. 

I’m fairly sure the exhaust coming off the manifold will be directed straight down.  I know, it will be horrible loud in the cab, so maybe we could wye it off right at the manifold and put a couple of modified Thrush muffler’s on and still have clearance between the end of them and the pavement.  I don’t want them showing at all.

We’ll have to do something with the suspension, obviously.  It can’t squat at all.  In other words, I want this to be a sleeper, which in street talk means everything looks original and normal from the outside. 

We may have to make our engine cowling to look like suitcases of some sort for anyone that might happen to look in through the windows. 

It’s probably only going to be a one passenger car after Larry is done with the remake I have in mind.  That’s okay.  But I wish for Larry’s sake it would be two.

Because then he and I would take it on a neat little road trip to Wichita.  On the way there, we’d fine tune the tune and maybe add a little smoke on accel. 

Ah.  Then.  We’d cruise Kellogg and Rock.  We’d find us some kid in a ‘Stang and slide up beside him at the stoplight.

Oh.  Here’s where I forgot something.  We would have speakers mounted inside the side panels and wheel wells that were connected to the sound system.  We’d have a recording of an actual Prius revving its little rice grinder engine and we’d play that at a fairly loud rate up against that ‘Stang. 

I can see that kid’s lip curled up in a sneer as he intently watches the light. 

But that’s all I’ll see of him.  Because the distance and the smoke between us thereafter will be too great for me to look rearwards and make anything out.

*****

This was supposed to be about how we locked ourselves out of our truck one day at Larry’s place.  Might have to save that for another time.