Big auto swap builds are not too dissimilar from the 1997 John Travolta and Nicolas Cage classic Face/Off. Both are pretty over the top, don’t hold up well after repeated viewings, and exist best as pure entertainment—don’t look to either for anything substantial, nutritional, or even common sense.
In that way, this Checker Cab body swapped onto a BMW E65 chassis and powered by a V12 exists only as entertainment. This particular car looks pretty ragged aside from the bonkers body, and its provenance is a little foggy, too. (Eds note: That’s par for the course with weirdo builds if we’re honest.) It’s listed for sale on eBay here and we’d normally say “Buyer Beware” but if you’ve made it this far already, you already know that.
First, the listing purports a 1981 Checker Cab body on a 2001 BMW 750 chassis, which half checks out. The Checker part checks out, but the 750 was a V8 powertrain—the 760 was the V12 version, which we’ll chalk up to just a typo. The listing reports the six-speed automatic hooked to the V12 is slipping, which is probably the least of its issues, but runs and drives. All of the V12’s computers that serve as the over-complicated German sedan’s life support has been moved to the trunk of the Checker, where the famous Bangle Butt used to be.
Second, the seller is reportedly in the U.S., although the creation appears to be imported from north of the border. Doom Custom in Quebec appears to be the builder and chronicled their creation on their Facebook page, although Doom appears to be defunct and no one from the shop responded to our attempts to reach them. How this car got to the U.S. or when, we might never know. The VIN is likely from the Checker cab itself, which doesn’t help to know how many miles this BMW has traveled before it was chopped up and Frankensteined into this.
Still, regardless of how this mongrel came into this world, we can still celebrate it. It’s a bona fide shitbox in more ways than one: whether it’s the notoriously overbuilt and complicated V12 under the hood, the shaky body swap that absolutely never fits the way you’d expect, the dirt-nasty interior, or even the maligned first-gen iDrive that apparently works, not much about this car screams “on the daily” in any respect. Just admire the show and try not to pick apart the plot too much, OK?
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