If you don’t count the high center of gravity, the weight limit, the weak chassis, or the small size, a standard shopping cart is an almost ideal platform for building a fun drifting kart. At least, that was [Garage Avenger]’s thought process when he started this build to turn a shopping cart into the ultimate drift vehicle.
The first thing on the list was to solve the issues with the high center of gravity and the fact that he couldn’t fit in the cart easily. Chopping out the back of the basket as well as everything beneath it solved both of these problems. From there a custom chassis could be fabricated from square steel tubing which includes a lever system which controls the rake of the caster wheels and thus their driftability. The power train and battery system for this build comes from a 2400 W electric scooter with a few modifications made to get it to fit on the new chassis.
After a test drive of the original prototype, a few modifications were made including using smaller caster wheels in the back, the addition of a spring to make the lever action for the rear wheels easier to engage, some front casters for stability, and a seat a little more substantial than the metal mesh of the cart. With all the electronics put into the cart, he’s ready to drift off into the sunset. This isn’t his first crazy vehicle, either. When winter rolls around you’ll find him getting around in a jet-powered sled instead.
He is making a Crazy Kart (X)XL. It is a commercially available ‘drift’ cart. Look up ‘Ken Box’ to see it doing its thing.
That was such a good video.
It’s a real-life “Cap’n Dare” (X-Files S9E5)
Looks really fun. I remember seeing a show on tv a long time ago (maybe on the Discovery channel?) where several people had a modified shopping cart race. They used car batteries and large starter motors. One guy had a bicycle with the cart attached to the front.
As fun as this looks, it has the disappointment of a Ship of Thesius.
This isn’t a shopping cart that has been powered.
This is a powered…thing, that has had a few shopping cart parts added to it.
It is a kart, that has been decorated with a shopping cart aesthetic.
If it was a real cart it’d go sideways, the castors waller, and it goes kachunk kachunk…
Cockfield- your opening sentences are great. Also topic sentences for paragraphs and all the other things. Please share with others.
Best
Thanks! Shoutout to my first journalism teacher Mr. H for really hammering home the importance of a good lede. Also this was a bit of an inside joke; in a story for a creative writing class I took a while back I wrote a sentence something like “he was unhurt except for the concussion, a sprained wrist, and a broken leg” which I was always proud of myself for. Ha!
Needs mouse.
Or rat, LS, coyote, hemi, magnum.
Not prejudiced. Any V8 will do.
Except Ford 3 valve or English/German/Italian trash (spit).