West Coast Customs build working official Nintendo Mario Kart go-karts

One of the highlights of this year’s LA Auto Show wasn’t a car you will ever be able to drive on the road. It was West Coast Customs coolest trick yet – life size, real working Mario Kart go-karts!

Nintendo approached West Coast Customs to build the karts to celebrate Mario Kart 7 on 3DS. The team are more used to tricking out the rustiest of rust-buckets with the (not very helpful) help of Xzibit in Pimp My Ride. What the team came up with was, as expected, exactly what the Mario Karts would look like if they were built to life-size spec.

Mario’s original go-kart as well as Luigi’s Bumble Bee car got the life-size treatment, and they are gigantic. Don’t think in terms of the usual go-kart size. As you can see, a human sitting in them almost gets dwarfed by the size of the Mario Kart, but then again, when you’re shooting shells and banana peels at each other, you have to have somewhere to store them.

Despite reports stating otherwise, West Coast Customs has confirmed that the go-karts actually work.

Web and images: West Coast Customs