Woah, this bonkers hillclimbing BMW i8 has FOUR engines, 868bhp and a 14,800rpm redline

Ever look under the bonnet of your project car and worry the engineering is just all so complex? Well, we hate to break it to you, but it turns out we’ve actually all had it remarkably easy.

This is complex. What you see in the rough and ready pictures above is the hillclimbing racer of Team Edlinger. It’s a BMW i8 with a full carbon fibre body, but in place of the standard three-cylinder hybrid powertrain there are no fewer than four 999cc BMW superbike engines.

Each engine features its own clutch and gearbox, and each one powers a single wheel. So, like a quad-motor EV there’s the ability to control where the torque is being sent at all times. Although unlike a quad-motor EV, with this i8 you should get an unholy sound to match.

“The engines rev up to 14,800rpm and all exhaust pipes lead into one single tailpipe without any muffler,” David Edlinger tells TG. We can’t tell you how badly we want to hear this thing run.

Apparently, each engine has its own control unit too, and the four powerplants communicate with each other to “ensure driveability and failure detection”. Oh, and total power currently stands at 868bhp. Although we say ‘currently’ because Edlinger admits the team wants to bring hybrid power back to this i8, with even more horses expected as a result. 

“As our last car was quite unique,” says Edlinger, referencing the team’s previous hillclimb racer (an E30 BMW 320i fitted with an Indycar V8), “we wanted to create something even more special.”

Yep, job done we reckon.