IT CAME FROM THE SHED

FACTORIES CAN'T BUILD EVERYTHING. THE TRUE ESSENCE OF HAND-BUILDING, OF INGENUITY, OF CREATIVITY CAN BE FOUND IN GARAGES AND SHEDS AROUND THE WORLD. WHETHER THEY'RE REPLICAS OF UNTOUCHABLE VEHICLES OR CREATIONS THAT COME FROM A DAY SPENT THINKING "WHAT IF." THE MOST CREATIVE CARS IN THE WORLD MIGHT NOT COME FROM AUTOMAKERS. THEY COME FROM YOUR NEIGHBOR MAKING NOISE WELL INTO THE NIGHT.

- MACK HOGAN

Whatever you expected to see behind this garage door, a Porsche Boxster converted to a classic F1 lookalike probably wasn't it.

THE METAMORPH

THE LAMBORGHINI - GREEN, six-wheeled Jeep TJ parked out front is something of a giveaway. Besides a few under-the-table auto shops and a door store, there’s little reason to end up in this industrial park outside Phoenix. Unless you know what’s behind Wesley Kagan’s garage door.

There’s some distance between what it looks like and what it is. What the project looks like is an exoskeleton in the shape of a Sixties grand Prix racer, a narrow-body open-wheeler inspired by Jim Clark’s Lotus 49. What it is, or once was, is a first-generation Porsche Boxster S.

Continuing to call it a Boxster is either unsatisfactory or dishonest, given the scope of the transformation. The body, suspension, and interior all are unique, hand-built, and designed by Kagan, 24. The powertrain was carried over to the car he dubs the Porsche Kart. Then the flat-six threw a rod. At that point, Kagan, never one for the easy way, stuffed a V-12 from a Mercedes S600 under the . . . well, under nothing. The end result is a car that shares its brakes, sway bar, steering rack, rear subframe, six-speed manual transaxle, and radiators with a Boxster.

Every other bit is either ported from another car or custom-built in the image of Kagan’s wildest dreams. It is a ground-up garage project more ambitious than most established tuner shops would attempt. Alone, and with his own ingenuity, Kagan built something so unusual that his video on the undertaking garnered coverage by a half dozen major media outlets and nearly a million views on YouTube. The project has been such a success that Kagan has a big idea: He’s throwing out most of it.