Mad Mike has unveiled his latest drift creation and it may be his most outrageous build yet. It’s a McLaren P1 with a 1000hp triple rotary engine – no wonder he’s dubbed the car ‘MadMac’
Unveiled overnight at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, this project is a collaboration between the Kiwi drifting superstar and McLaren modification specialists, Lanzante, with help from some of Mike’s usual friends, namely Japan’s Rocket Bunny.
The MadMac was a year in the making, with the idea first discussed between Mad Mike and Dean Lanzante at last year’s Festival of Speed – even though their conversation started discussing radio controlled cars.
“I got talking to [Dean] Lanzante at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year,” Mad Mike told Torquecafe in an exclusive interview. “Lanzante is known for building some of the world’s most crazy McLarens himself. But… I didn’t know he was a McLaren guy, like I did not know Dean Lanzante is a McLaren guy. I knew him because he built – when I was young I was like right into Tamiya RC cars, like the old Tamiya Hornet and the Monster Beetle – [and] he actually built the Sand Scorcher in like a full-size Beetle with all the paddle tyres, and he revealed it at Goodwood and ran it up the driveway on the tarmac with paddle tyres.”
Once the pair finished talking about real-life RC cars, talk turned to his next project, having already created drift cars from a fleet of Mazdas to a Lamborghini Huracan.
“I was like, ‘oh man, it would have to be a McLaren, get a P1 GTR, chop its pieces.’ At this point it was not going to be a rotary swap, you know, I was like, just the connection with Bruce being a Kiwi,” Mad Mike explained.
“But you know, a lot of people globally don’t know the connection of Bruce also, but Goodwood Festival of Speed, well, Goodwood circuit itself is where, unfortunately, Bruce lost his life, but there’s a few stories that I wanted to tell, and I mean, if you’re gonna chop up a hypercar, a supercar, you know, it’s got to be a McLaren or something. So, yeah, that’s what ended up being.
“And Lanzante, you know, we go from this conversation, like I say, from talking about Tamiya radio control cars, to him being like, ‘oh, well, I got the McLarens.’ I was like, ‘holy sh#t, man, who is this guy?’ So it’s just incredible. You never know who’s who, you know, and for me, I just love to entertain and I guess for me, building cars is like, I get to express my personality and my style through the way I build them and assemble them.”
The MadMac will be on display at Goodwood this weekend as well as running up the famous driveway on the estate – where Mad Mike will no doubt destroy some tyres.
Check out the Mad Mac in action below, having a test run ahead of its public reveal.
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