Hot rodding isn’t dead in the age of electric vehicles, that’s for sure. If it were dead, things like the Plaidessey wouldn’t exist.
Confused? Don’t worry, we can explain.
Get Fully Charged
Racing in the age of EV hot rodding
Think EVs are boring? What about a Tesla Model S Plaid masquerading as a junkyard Honda Odyssey minivan? That’s a 1,000+ HP machine that can take on just about any combustion-powered car in a race all while looking like the driver is late for soccer practice.
Late last year, the guys who run the YouTube channel BoostedBoiz mated the body of a ratty Honda Odyssey minivan from the 2000s onto the gutted chassis of a Tesla Model S Plaid to create what is possibly the ultimate sleeper: a 1,020 horsepower car that looks like a junkyard soccer practice shuttle but has all-wheel drive and is dead silent.
They called it the Plaidessey, and one of the main reasons it exists is that the wheelbase difference between an Odyssey and a Model S is just 1.6 inches, making it the ideal combo if you don’t want to mess with the chassis’ length.
Back when the donor Tesla Model S Plaid didn’t have a minivan body over it and had most of its panels removed for the sake of weight saving, it ran sub-9-second runs on the drag strip. With the 2001 Honda Odyssey body on top, it might be a bit slower because it’s a bit heavier.
But that hasn’t stopped the guys from taking the Plaidessey at Cleetus McFarland’s Freedom Factory facility in Bradenton, Florida, where they raced souped-up Audis, other Teslas, and even Cleetus’ own twin-turbo Porsche 911 Turbo S that isn’t exactly stock either. When it was new, the German sports car had 552 hp. After increasing the boost pressure and adding other mods to it, that figure is certainly higher.
5 Photos
The Tesla-swapped minivan didn’t break a sweat and munched through almost all of its rivals, but when the Porsche came to play, it was a slightly different story. The fact that Cleetus drives on the oval-shaped race track just about every day didn’t help either–he owns the place, after all.
Whatever the result, it looks like a whole lot of fun. So go ahead and check out the video embedded at the top of this page. Then, let us know what you think in the comments below.
