Snakepit 1975 – by car customiser George Barris (USA)

American customiser George Barris, is best known for creating custom cars for TV shows and movies, as well as various custom cars built to order for celebrities, but Barris also took on slightly more performance-oriented projects.

Envisioned as a land-speed record car, the Snakepit is powered by a total of six Cobra-Ford 351 V8 engines placed in two rows of three, and with a theoretical capability of 2,000 hp. The 23-foot-long steel body clad with 30 coats of lacquer, houses all the other things needed to make this run, including two Ford C-6 automatic transmissions, 12 Holley four-barrel carburettors, 48 exhaust pipes, two Pontiac rear axles and fuel tanks. The cockpit features an orange velvet interior, two comfortable-looking seats and a lot of gauges. The cost of the car build back in the 1970’s, was a reputed $100,000 (That’s roughly $1 million with contemporary inflation) and it took an extraordinary four years to complete.

The car was ostensibly created “to attack international speed records at speeds that stagger the imagination,'” but given the coffin-like aerodynamics, safety equipment (or lack thereof) and the tyres, it looks like 150 mph would be a serious gamble. There’s also little evidence of this car moving around under its power much at all — as it appears the Snakepit has spent most of its life in collections and various custom car displays. It has even been rumoured that the vehicle was made for a motion picture that was never produced. The 300-mph “target speed” still gets bandied around every time the Snakepit goes to auction, which is once every five years or so. It would appear perhaps, the car is more of a collectible or simply a styling exercise with a Barris pedigree than a marvel of engineering with records to its name, especially given the daunting expectation of everything continuing to work in unison when up and running and the frightening fuel burn rate of around a gallon of petrol every 500 meters!

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