The BMW i8 is one of the most innovative supercars of all time. A carbon fiber masterpiece with a tiny, mega-boosted three-cylinder engine paired with electric motors to give supercar performance and economy car efficiency. It was McLaren P1 tech for a tenth of the price.
When I first drove one after its debut, I was enamored. It felt like the future, like it would make all other cars obsolete. Of course, it didn’t. The one thing that you forget is that yes, all of this tech and interesting design is all well and good, but people don’t buy supercars for how efficient they may or may not be. Still, it’s a shame. The i8 still looks like a spaceship, and sounds like one too.
Now, one guy on the internet is planning to swap a B58 inline-six into his i8, to turn it into a real supercar. Trevor Elam’s build is just getting started, but is totally worth a follow. But even during disassembly, he’s done something pretty great. The i8 has an external speaker built into one of the exhausts, a way to amplify its underwhelming sound to the world. And since it’s a speaker, well, it can play music.
Elam hooked it up and it works great. Now, when he does the B58 swap, I hope he keeps this somewhere on the car but wires it into the stereo. Just imagine the looks on people’s faces when an i8 drives by, blasting classic rock out of its exhaust. Nobody will know what happened.