If you’ve paid any attention to the world of drifting, chances are you know Michael Whiddett and his crazy rotary powered Mazdas. The man called “Mad Mike” burst onto the scene in a wild Mazda RX-7 drift car that screamed with four rotary engines and a whole bunch of flames. Since then he has become quite the celebrity and indeed the showman, going to all sorts of events across the world. However his most recent project is nothing short of mental – a bastardised McLaren race car with a turbocharged 3 rotor engine producing 1000 HP.
So what makes this machine special? How did it come to be? Well, it’s quite the story so I hope you’re paying attention. This car started life as a McLaren 650S GT3 – a proper race car that would’ve seen competition in Europe and the UK. No, I don’t know who raced it before Lanzante got a hold of it. Anyway, the rear body work, the rear wing, the bonnet and the doors were completely changed to look like that of a P1 GTR, creating something of a bastard child. After that happened, the car was sent to Mike’s shop in New Zealand and the real hard work began.
The 650S GT3 was not made for drifting, so whole bunch of work was needed to ensure that it could deal with all the tyre shredding. This started with a custom front suspension kit that allowed for a larger steering angle. The rear suspenion was also tweaked for more extreme camber and toe angles. Then the 3.8 litre twin turbo V8 was thrown out in favour of a billet-cast 3 rotor engine with a turbo like many of Mike’s Mazdas. A custom bell housing was fabricated to link the 3-rotor to the McLaren’s 6 speed transaxle gearbox.
To get the new engine into the car, the chassis had to be modified to stop it from scraping along the ground and causing serious damage. Putting a 3 rotor in the car wasn’t the initial plan but Mike said screw it because he is the rotary guy and it makes for a more spectacular package. The car’s entire engine management system, consisting of many wires, plugs and fuses, had to be pulled out to make way for a bespoke Haltech system.
To top it all off, Mike commissioned a Rocket Bunny bodykit to make an already wide car even wider. The rear hips in particular are on the same level as those ridiculous RWB kits fitted to Porsches. As for the livery, well that too was designed by Mike and the camo pattern he chose with the constrasting blues serve as the perfect background for the iconic Red Bull logo. He is yet another athlete sponsored by the energy drink giant.
You can’t believe the presence of this thing. Nothing on it is conventional. Nothing on it is refined or hidden from the spectators. You see it all – the massive turbo, the exposed air filters, the rear exhaust pipes, the wastegates, the aero and the massive rear wing. Mad Mike’s MadMac is a truly unhinged car that redefines the drifting rulebook.
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