Get onboard a 470-hp, Maserati V-8-powered Mini Moke

You may not be familiar with small French manufacturer Lazareth, but Ludovic Lazareth’s car, bike, and trike company has been around since 1998, recently creating products like the 600-cc Lazareth Amphibie, an amphibious Mini Moke:

Looking at the Amphibie, it probably won’t shock you to learn that Ludovic Lazareth is a student of Franco Sbarro, the legendary Italian-Swiss master of insane automotive designs. Earlier this year, Monsieur Lazareth also realized that the company still had the chassis used for the amphibious prototypes, and that the platform was capable of taking both the V-8 and the robotic manual gearbox of a Maserati GranTurismo Sport, along with a set of 17-inch wheels.

Original Mokes were produced in England, Portugal, Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, and Rhodesia, yet engine choices remained sparse from 1964 until 1993, never exceeding 1275 cc.

To demonstrate what the Ferrari-made F136 YS V-8 can do in a car weighing 1851 pounds, Lazareth produced an homage to the best movie of 1976, Claude Lelouch’s C’était un rendez-vous, mounting a camera right on the Mini V8M’s bumper.

The Italians certainly know how to make an engine sound exceptional, but things get even better with the short exhaust made for the Moke. A British design with a French twist and an Italian V-8. Clearly, the Lazareth V8M represents the best of Europe: