You know, we really thought we’d seen it all when a guy from England built the world’s fastest dinner table, when a couple of young guys built the world’s fastest coin-operated kiddie ride, and a bunch of crazies from Thailand stuck big-inch motorcycle engines on long tail boats the size of a kayak and raced them. But then … someone goes and builds a twin-turbo combine.

Wait, what? A combine? Like the farming kind?

Yeah, that kind.

A couple of saavy Finnish gearheads, Petri Plosila and Raine Savioja, had the epically-brilliant idea to take a late-60’s era Fahr M44 combine and convert it into a purpose-built drag racing machine. Of course, anyone that’s ever been caught behind a combine on a remote country road knows these things were built for many things, and speed wasn’t really one of them. So the duo procured a 500 cubic-inch, 8.2-liter V8 engine out of a 1976-model Cadillac and shoehorned it up inside the inner workings of the classic harvester. They then mated a pair of turbochargers and an intercooler to it, all of which be seen on the combine’s exterior tucked behind the header. 

But they didn’t stop there. While the details of the driveline are difficult to find, they were able to replace the original axles and put a set of dedicated, 15-inch drag wheels on the front with some big meats to plant the estimated 500 to 600 horsepower. Out back are a set of narrow motorcycle hoops, and coilover shocks give it all some dampening. A roll cage surrounds the driver, who sits over the top of the steering wheel like a dinner table and saws away, just as they would have back in the day. 

As you might expect from something that’s top-heavy and front-wheel drive, it’s a handful … but it does run, and it does awe. The performance isn’t too shabby for what it is: 16-seconds flat at 80.51 mph in the quarter-mile, or quicker than the vast majority of family sedans on the road, while quite literally carrying the aerodynamics of a brick and the weight of, well…a farm implement.

Better yet, this M44 Super is said to be street-legal, as would any farm implement, as it doesn’t need to be licensed or registered to take to the roadway. A neighbor of Plosila and Savioja is a police officer and was aware of the project early on and was able to give the pair guidance as far as the laws go on driving it on the street.

Brilliant, I tell ‘ya.