This machine could harvest dinner at 80 mph.
If you’re like most people, you’ve never wondered how it would be possible to make a combine harvester faster. Maybe if you have a farm or have worked on one the thought has fleetingly crossed your mind, but then it would only be to fantasize about getting the job done quicker. This is where the crazy thinking of car enthusiasts in Finland comes into play, because a guy there decide to make a combine drag racer.
You’ll see in the video accompanying this article that the agrarian vehicle has a quarter-mile showdown with a classic Shelby GT350. That sounds like a ridiculously lopsided race, considering the American muscle car was built for drag strip duty and the other was designed for harvesting wheat. However, the reality isn’t nearly as ridiculous as you might imagine.
You see, this combine doesn’t have just a few little tweaks. It’s powered by an 8.2-liter V8 from a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado. That, along with some other modifications make it better suited for burning rubber on the racetrack than doing any work at the farm.
Harald Bore lives in a remote part of Finland, although we’re not sure exactly where, and if we did you probably would know nothing about the area so it doesn’t matter that much. Now, you could chock up his desire to build a racer which can literally mow people down to living in a rural area, but then you’d be one of those city types who looks down your nose at those who choose to live in the countryside. Instead, it’s most likely Bore is just inspired by the crazy Finnish car culture. The guy also has a habit of modifying vehicles you wouldn’t expect, like a Rolls-Royce dragster.
Perhaps Bore has created a new type of farm machine-inspired motorsport, like tractor pulls. If this video spreads, others might be inspired to modify their combine harvesters or other farm equipment to make the ultimate drag racer. Only time will tell.
