Ricky Adkins is a name most drag racing fans recognize from his Top Dragster and Top Sportsman successes, including multiple fast-bracket racing national and divisional championships. But recently, it’s not his familiar mono-shock dragsters or any of his traditional door cars that’s turning heads, but instead it’s a radical 1961 Austin Mini Cooper turned rear-engine bracket machine. The internet can’t stop talking about it, and after one look, it’s easy to see why.

“I just thought, well, to me it would work best if I put all the weight in the back,” Adkins says with a laugh about his one-off creation. What started as a shell sitting in his barn for many years that was originally intended to become a golf cart, has evolved into one of the most unique race cars to hit the track in recent memory. “When I was thinking about this project, I was looking for a little truck, and my wife’s like, ‘well, why don’t you use the Mini out there?’ ” From there, one thing led to another.

The body was a regular ‘61 Austin Mini Cooper that Adkins cut up and shortened. “The roof’s in 20 pieces,” he notes of the bodywork involved in trimming length out of the original steel shell. From the cab and doors on back, Adkins crafted the rest of the shapely body from aluminum at his Adkins Race Cars shop in Michigan.

Seven months ago, this wild concept went from sketch to reality, and true to Adkins’ history as an innovator — he proudly invented the monoshock dragster suspension design decades ago — he applied the same approach to the Mini. The car features a completely one-off chrome-moly chassis with a single rear shock setup and a four-link front suspension with long-travel air shocks and a straight axle.

Under the steel Mini Cooper shell sits a 540 cubic inch big-block Chevrolet with a TVS-style supercharger. The engine hasn’t quite lived up to expectations; not yet, anyway. Originally expected to produce 1,400 horsepower, Adkins quickly discovered it was down on compression, which seriously limited its boost potential. “It was a pig,” he exclaims of his first track outing.

Even with the power limitations, Adkins managed a 5.49-second eighth-mile pass at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio. The car tips the scales at 2,270 pounds, just 15 pounds shy of his more raced Pontiac GTO, and is NHRA-legal for Top Sportsman with a double framerail 25.1 chassis cert and funny car cage. He expects it to run 4.60s to 4.70s when dialed.

Built for bracket racing, the Mini’s design certainly delivers on shock value, but Adkins says it serves as a strategic weapon. With the driver seated nearly at the front spindle, it gives him an edge at the stripe. “That was definitely a thought,” he admitted when asked if it was built to give him better vision to judge the finish line stripe.

For Adkins, this is just the next chapter in a decorated career that includes his championships, more big-money bracket racing wins than he can recollect, and a 2016 induction into the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame. As for the Mini? It might not be setting the world on fire just yet, but it’s certainly setting the bar for creativity, and turning plenty of heads.