The BAC Mono Is a Crazy $250,000 Street-Legal Race Car

This is a 2015 Bac Mono and is probably the closest thing you can get to a real

street

legal

race

car. I recently reviewed an aerial atom and that gets you pretty close, but this is even closer, even more ridiculous and absurd, and today I'm going to review it, I borrowed this bac

mono

from a viewer here in the San Diego area who has his own YouTube channel called Tom's Garage. It's a pretty small channel, but you should check it out because it has pretty good content considering the owner. Of this car he also has a Porsche Carrera GT, a Ford GT and a Ferrari 512 TR.

You can visit Tom's Garage by clicking the link in the description below, so let's talk monkey first. Yes, this is

street

legal

, as difficult as it may be. I think it's built by a company called bac, which stands for Briggs Automotive Company, which is based in the UK and is called a monkey because it has only one seat. It's incredibly light, it only weighs 1400 pounds which makes it about a quarter the weight of a BMW X5, then again that makes sense when you look at it because frankly it looks like about a quarter of a BMW a quarter of the performance.

This thing uses a 2.3-liter four-cylinder based on a Ford engine, but then heavily modified by engineering company Cosworth, the result is about 285 horsepower and about 210 pound-feet of torque, which is not Sounds like huge numbers, but remember that 1400 pounds means this will do 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and reach a top speed of 170 miles per hour if you're brave enough. One of the other things I love about this car is that it is molded to fit the owner you are measuring for and the seat is carefully sculpted into the cockpit to make it a perfect and comfortable fit for the person who owns the car, but it will be better consider that they cost around 250,000 here in the United States and today I'm going to adapt or at least I'm going to try, but first I'm going to take you on a tour of the monkey and show you all of its interesting quirks and features, then I'll take it out on the road and i will drive it and then give it an excellent rating and for more of my thoughts on the bac

mono

click the link below to visit autotrader.com oversteer, okay.

I'm going to start off with the quirks and features of the bac mono with one of my favorite quirks and that would be moving the car short distances to get there in the car is a process I'll cover in a second so if you want to, for example, take it out of your garage before you go in, the way you do it, you just pull it and it just moves. It's not very heavy and will just move wherever you pull it. Now the owner of this car told me that this is how he gets it out of his garage every day, he just grabs it and pulls it a little, it's easier than getting in and going through all this, you can't do that in your Toyota Camry , but anyway, once you've pulled or pushed your butt monkey to the position you want, it's time to climb inside, which is made easier by the fact that there are no doors or roof and there's no key to this one either. car, although that's not really a theft problem because, first of all, thieves are unlikely to come across one of these, but also the starting procedure is a bit complicated, so let's talk about that. initial procedure and begins with simply entering the monkey.

Now the first thing you should do before entering is take everything that is important out of your pockets because once you are seated you will not have access to your pockets. very comfortable in there, so you take out your phone, for example, and there's a little storage pocket to the left of the seat where you can store your phone, that's what it's for, you put it in there and that's your interior storage. Now there is one of those too. storage pockets to the right of the seat and contains the owner's manual, this is the owner's manual, it is appropriately small and light and it is a USB so you have to plug it into your computer to do anything with it, so if you're driving in your monkey and you're confused, you don't know how to adjust something right, too bad unless you have your laptop with you, but anyway, the next thing you do to get into the monkey after you've emptied your pockets is take off the steering wheel Now it comes off like most cars that have removable steering wheels, which actually aren't many, there's a little gold lever on the back, you pull it towards you and then you can remove the steering wheel now, funnily enough, there's a little alcantara. panel in front of the cabin that was designed so that you have a place to put the steering wheel temporarily when you have removed it, there is nowhere else you can stick it, but if you put it there it will be out of the way and you can do more. easily climb inside the monkey anyway with the steering wheel removed, then it's time to start climbing into the car, but before doing so you need to make sure the seat belts are not on the inside or else you will. sit on them and you'll never be able to get them on top of you so you can buckle them up, so there's this little technique where you can thread the belt through itself and place it on the outside of the car and that way you're sure that you won't scratch or damage the car because the belts are there, but then the belts are out of your way and it's time to get on the monkey to get as close as you can and stop. into the seat and then you just fit in there, of course this car was built perfectly to the owner's size and specifications so if you're not his size you won't fit in, luckily I am so this works pretty well. now once you have sat in the monkey the entry procedure is not complete its not even that close the next thing you have to do is put on your helmet this car has no windshield so you really want something in front . of your face, so if you hit bugs or whatever, they don't hit your face, your eyes, your nose, once you put the helmet on, you can put the seat belt on, which is a five-point racing style harness that everyone gets hooked. together in the middle, if you've ever been in a

race

car you're pretty familiar with this belt, it's not that unusual and then your final activity once you've sat in the suit is to put the steering wheel back on, this is A pretty simple procedure, it continues roughly the same way it came out, you pull that gold tab on the back and you have to line it up correctly so that the pins connect for the electronics on the steering wheel and then it just slides to the right. turn it back on and then you get in and you're ready to go, except you're not really ready because we still have to figure out how to turn the monkey on, which is especially challenging considering there's no key and therefore not particularly intuitive, so here is the process on the left of the steering wheel, you have two red buttons, both unlabeled, the top button is the master ignition switch for the car, you press it and it somehow wakes the car up and gets it ready to go. on now, the interesting thing is that the red button below activates the fire suppression system which uses halon gas to extinguish any fire that is occurring, so you have the power switch and the fire gas trigger switch one next to each other.

Tagless size. Fortunately, the fire switch is in this small housing. You wouldn't accidentally press it if you knew what you were doing. You don't want to give this car to someone who doesn't know what he's doing, but. anyway once you have pressed the main ignition switch the next thing you press is the button in the middle of the steering wheel it has the m logo for mono and it says power you press it once and it turns on the fuel pump and several others. systems, you push it a second time and then the engine starts and then you're ready to go to the bottom now once you start the car.

One of the cool things is that you can remove the steering wheel, you can do this while the car is running, so even though the button to start the car is on the steering wheel, when you remove the steering wheel, that doesn't turn the car off, so You could just be driving, take off the steering wheel and continue, albeit in a straight line. line but anyway let's talk about the steering wheel because it is without a doubt the most important component of the car's interior and not only because it directs it but also because it contains all its information and its controls, we will start with the screen on. the steering wheel now the screen provides you with two different modes, you can have road mode or if you press this button it goes into race mode if you are in race mode emphasize the gear a little more and remove the speedometer since you don't really care about the speed at which You go on the track now, regardless of what mode you are in, you will always see four gauges that will allow you to monitor various parts of the car.

You have the oil pressure and temperature on the On the left and on the right you have the engine temperature and the air temperature which allows you to see what's going on and they are directly in your line of sight. Now, beyond those gauges, the screen also gives you other useful information where you have the tachometer. At the top and you can see as you rev ​​the engine, the tachometer expands and tells you what the engine speed is. At the bottom you have the fuel gauge that tells you exactly how much fuel you have in the tank.

That one is pretty obvious. Another useful thing the screen does well when you start the car says cute, one of a kind, that's certainly true, but obviously the steering wheel has more functions than just that screen. You can see that there are quite a few buttons on the steering wheel. one of them is the horn, press this button and then the horn sounds and in case you want to know how the horn sounds on a bac mono, now the next one on this steering wheel you have six different buttons that allow you to control various aspects of lighting on the exterior of this car.

This little black button on the left turns on the headlights and you have two different stages. Press it once and it turns on the parking lights. You press it a second time. and turn on the full beams, then on the top left you have another button that allows you to turn on the lights in case you want the high beams to come on if you are driving your monkey in a low light situation, like maybe in the dark . or on a foggy race track, now talking about fog, on the bottom left of the steering wheel, you have this white button that turns on the rear fog light, which will illuminate and let other drivers know that you are there in incredibly foggy conditions , now beyond those lights. elements, you can also use the steering wheel to turn on the turn signals, yes, this racing car looks like a

crazy

single seater, there is no windshield, it has turn signals, you have these buttons on the left and right, the yellow ones, they turn on the signal turn signal and no It is not canceled so when you turn a corner the turn signal will stay on as it turns out that when you press that button the signal will flash 20 times and then automatically cancel itself so you don't accidentally forget that your signal turn signal is on and Leave it on, which is a very good idea.

You also have the emergency light button at the bottom right of the steering wheel. You can press it and turn on the hazard light, so there are a lot of different lighting and turn signal controls on that steering wheel. but the most important function of the steering wheel is the fact that it allows you to start the car, although you cannot do it with the steering wheel alone. This is unusual, this car has paddle shifters but it also has a clutch. Now pedal when you start the car, it's in neutral and to put it in first gear you have to press the clutch, press the n button on the steering wheel and press the right pedal to go up the gear and then it goes into first gear, but now that you're in first gear you don't you can take your foot off the clutch pedal, you have to leave it on because otherwise it will die like a manual transmission car and when you drive you have to use the clutch pedal if you want. changing gears, which is kind of a

crazy

experience, using a clutch pedal to shift with a gear stick.

I'm really curious how I'll feel about it when I drive this thing later. It seems very contradictory and strange, but the owner. It tells me that you eventually get used to it and by the way it's the same if you want to shift into reverse, you're in neutral you have to press the clutch and then pull the left paddle to slow down and only then it will go into reverse and again you have You have to leave the clutch in when you're in reverse or else the car will stall like a manual transmission car and by the way, another cool thing about changing gears with the clutch pedal and the paddles that you just have to push. step on the clutch pedal to shift below 4000 rpm, this car has something called straight cut gears and although I won't get into the technical aspect of it, basically what it means is that above 4000 rpm you can simply shift and the car it will get stuck in motion. without the need for the clutch pedal, so it basically depends on howfast the engine speed, whether you have to use the clutch or not, which for me only adds to the confusion, but again the owner says you get used to it now.

Inside, going past the steering wheel, there's not really much to talk about because it's a very, very small and simple interior, but there are a few other items worth pointing out here, one to the right of the steering wheel has a small A dial that allows you to adjust the inclination of the front or rear brake. Obviously, this is the kind of thing you'd only touch if you're a professional who can really dial this car in exactly how you want it, the owner tells me he's never touched it before. You also have near the parking brake, check the parking brake, which you can use if you want or if you are on a flat surface, you don't have to use it. and then you can pull and push your monkey as you wish and finally, the last item worth mentioning, you can see that the monkey has these mirrors on these posts that stick out as you can imagine, these are not electric mirrors if you want to adjust them.

You have to manually grab them with your hand and move them into position, although it's not that difficult as you can easily reach them from the inside and then I'll move outside of the jumpsuit and go over some of its exterior quirks and features. I want to start below the monkey if you look under the monkey you can see it has wood down there there is a piece of plywood that basically runs the entire length of the car so what is this about if you drive this thing? at the race track and you go hard and pick up a rock or a piece of debris or whatever and scrape under the car, it's a lot easier to replace a piece of plywood than it is to replace a big carbon fiber pan. that some cars would have and that's why this futuristic and crazy looking race car has plywood underneath, who would have guessed our next interesting article with the monkey comes on the front even though this car seems to have this big panel that goes through everything The front part is actually tricky, you have the wheels in the corners and then this center part, but in the middle it is open and you can see by looking down here that there is actually a giant hole in the front of the monkey on both sides and if you look in the hole, you can even see that there are like little wings like those of an airplane.

The reason for the hole and the wings is that the air is meant to go through here and those wings direct it right towards the center of the car and that air is. meant to cool it down and if you had physical parts in place here, the air would have a much harder time getting to where it needs to go to cool down the monkey and then probably the most interesting thing on the front of this car is that this crazy one just The seat that looks like a race car has a trunk and a cargo area to get to it, you press this little tab on the front if it's unlocked, which it is, and then it appears as a latch and then you just open this panel and you're done. inside and then you can store your cargo here.

Now one problem is that this panel does not have an accessory and it does not stay open automatically, so the owner added this particular accessory to keep it active so you can. Carry your stuff in or out of the monkey's cargo area. Now the cargo area is not just the bottom, although that is the largest part of the cargo area. You also have this top part that you can use to store even more cargo if you want. The cool thing about that top piece is that you can take it off and if you take it off, that's where your legs go when you're sitting in the cockpit, so you take it off and you can adjust the pedals if you want to put them on next.

A couple of other interesting things underneath here is that you can see that you can turn this red dial which is the adjustable suspension damper for this car again. If you're like a crazy track-focused pro, you might want to dial it in to make it a little bit stiffer or a little less stiff depending on the particular track or setup you're running, so you can do that very easily now. same. Also in this cargo compartment you can see that there are three fluid reservoirs, up here you have two. for brake fluid and has one for clutch fluid and you can monitor and add as needed.

Now, speaking of liquids, there's another pretty interesting item to mention here in the front compartment and it's in this little bag, this bag has a little place where it goes in the cargo area, you pull it out and you can see it has these two little spikes on it. silver with the mono m logo, so what exactly are these things? Well, it turns out they are dipsticks. They come with the car perfectly adapted. for the exact size to check your engine oil and transmission fluid, so you use those little single spike dipsticks to do exactly that and that's where they live in the cargo compartment now, to check those things, access it It's incredibly easy, you go to the back of the car where the engine is, you can remove this little silver cap and that's how you check the engine oil.

You go further back, there's a little black cap and that's how you check the transmission fluid. One of the few street legal cars, maybe the only one I can think of, where you don't even have to open anything to check the oil and other fluids, everything is there for you to do, but we maintain it. The car isn't always that easy, although you can check the oil right here and that's also where you add oil to change the oil filter, the body of the car has to come off, which isn't really something you're going to do. doing in his garage is a pretty complicated process, in fact the owner tells me the body has to be removed for a lot of engine repairs and a lot of access and even some maintenance, so it's not exactly the easiest thing to do in his garage. work, but you I have a lot of access to some parts back here and then some other interesting items in the rear, one is the third brake light.

The normal brake lights on the rear are pretty standard, they are very small little circles, almost as big as they need to be. It will be by regulation as they are trying to save as much weight as possible, but the third brake light is this normal car brake light, except it is mounted vertically. I really wonder if it is shared with other vehicles. It looks like a normal third brake light. you would find it mounted on a rear window, but here it is mounted vertically on this similar pillar on the rear mono and then speaking of that piece on the mono where the third brake light is, it also contains the fuel door and something that I love The thing about this car is that the fuel door has a lock to open it, you have to put a key in to turn it and then you can access the fuel.

I think it's funny because this car has no doors or roof, you don't even need a key to start it, but you do need a key to get into the fuel door to keep someone from messing up the fuel, and then one of my favorite things about it mono is the fact that it has pneumatic shifting, basically what this means. It's when you go to change gears, it's not like a cable or something that takes you to the next gear, but it's air. The car actually shoots air very, very fast from a compressor and that sends you into the next gear.

The owner of this car compared it to a nail gun that also uses air to drive nails into whatever you're using it for, it's the same here, it uses air to hit each additional gear, very unusual in cars, apparently it's a Bit more common on motorcycles, but either way I'm incredibly interested to see how it feels when you're behind the wheel. Okay, it's time for me to go drive the monkey, but before I do I want to talk to the owner of this car. Tom from Tom's Garage. So, Tom. The first question I think everyone thinks is are you crazy?

I have the vehicle. Yes, the vehicle for crazy people. So you drive this on the street. Yes, I drive it on the street. I will do that. I'll take it to lunch, maybe twice a week, three times a week, near you, in the city, yes, I drive during lunch and then I'll even take it to Home Depot. You know it doesn't have a windshield. Yeah, that's why I wear a helmet, so you wear a helmet every time you ride it. Oh yeah, do you ever wear sunglasses or whatever, without a helmet every time? Yeah, because you know I've hit a swarm of bees and they've just gone crazy. pow pow on my on my because that's your windshield ultimately, right, okay, how many miles do you have? uh, 7,500 miles, which is a ton, I mean, for a car like this, people are going to be, oh, I just never drive it. more but for an impractical single seater that's crazy probably the highest mileage oh yeah I think I have that's what the dealers told me I probably have the highest mileage car they've ever built yeah yeah so, What happens when people drive first?

Anyone know what it is? Some people know this because of Top Gear and stuff like that. People who know it know it well, but it's quite inspiring. I like driving because it really inspires people, especially children. Yeah, you know, they're actually kids. Yeah, yeah, well, what do people say when you bring it out? Yeah, they think it's a race car and they know they stand there and watch me come in and get dressed because you know you have to go through a whole procedure. Well, you walk in, you know, you've got your helmet on, you've got, you've got your noise advisory headphones on.

Everyone is standing around with their cameras, right? Do you follow him? You take it? Hello clue. I am a member of Spring Mountain Raceway in Nevada. How often? Wow, so that's it. How often are you? How can you upload it there? maybe once or twice a year I have other cars that I take there and you have a trailer and a truck so yeah I have a trailer and a trailer you don't drive it to the problem have you ever driven how is it further ? have you driven it oh i think the most i've driven it is maybe an hour it's very comfortable to drive but the comfort isn't really it's the vibration and the harmonics yeah that's really the deal have you ever Have you had any incidents? it's so low that you're under the mirrors, I imagine in many people's cars, have you ever had people try to change lanes at you or not see you well when you drive this on the highway or whatever you have what to have to drive? you're, you're on a motorcycle, right, you're never, you're never in anyone's blind spot very fast for a long time, I mean, and you can always take it out, so I drive in the fast lane where I have to or I have to drive in the slow lane. where I got it out good, you know, on the sidewalk, very good, but I've never had anyone that you know close or anything, what has the ownership experience been like in terms of reliability when I first bought it it had some bugs yeah, would you buy it new in 15 yeah I did it right you know I waited two years to get it you know I saw it in top gear yeah and once I saw it in top gear I was hooked yeah I go because I always I loved it, I loved the shape of the cars from the 60s, yes, yes, cars with a cabin and this is the only way you can drive one.

It seems that way, actually, yes, but, there are some bugs from the beginning, yes, and then, you know, I worked, we fixed it and it's been very reliable, I drive it three, three, four times a week, I took it out of my garage and went to lunch, where are you? you fix it uh there's a service place in Temecula that actually built these cars originally in the US so it benefits you being here in Southern California and specifically like San Diego County. It was, oh yeah, yeah, when I found out they had a distribution point. In Southern California that was only 45 minutes away, that's easier, yeah, you know, I'm going to have to fix this car if we were in Chicago or something, that might be a little more difficult situation, that's okay, well, I'm I'm going to drive it Are you nervous?

I'm not. I don't see with a Hellcat. Okay, driving the monkey. I am now wearing these sunglasses for obvious reasons. I think this is crazy. Many people say this or that car. it feels like a kart, it's almost cute, it feels like a kart for the road, incredibly loud, unbelievable noise, right behind you, and what's crazy is that because it's a sequential transmission, you have to downshift one by one so when you come to a light you have to get off first yourself it's so intense it's so intense but I think I really like that it's so cool I don't know if I would have driven it 7,500 miles but I could totally see driving this thing once in a while it's great there's nothing else like this I just drove the atom it's not even close to this crazy much harder sitting in the middle it's totally crazy without a second seat no windshield crazy the noise is unbelievable to me so crazy oh my god the wind is so excessive that you absolutely and profoundly need a helmet to drive this is unreal um but I must say it's a lot of fun it's a blast oh my god it's so intense I've never driven a car before it's so catastrophically intense it's so crazy it's so loud it's so everything is coming at you it'sincredibly fast ah I would never own this car in a million years but I love it and that's the bac mono this is probably the closest you will ever get to a race car for the road and although 250,000 is incredibly expensive for any car, and a lot less for something as light and simple as this, it is the perfect car if you are looking for a racing car, you can also take it to the supermarket, of course you can.

I'm not looking for that, no one is except the small handful of people who actually own one of these, but anyway, now it's time to give the monkey a score from Doug starting with the weekend and style categories The monkey looks great, special but not necessarily beautiful. it turns enough and gets a 7 out of 10. Acceleration is 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and gets a 10 out of 10. The handling is absolutely amazing and gets a 10 out of 10. The fun factor is huge, it's one One of the most fun cars I've ever driven and they get a 10 out of 10. Finally, a cool factor and it's cool.

Although I think the fact that a lot of people don't know exactly what it is, it just kind of takes it down a bit and gets a 9 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 46 out of 50. The following are the daily categories. and features, it has basically nothing, virtually no frills and gets a 1 out of 10. Comfort is essentially non-existent and gets a 1 out of 10. Quality is pretty good. The car's owner reports that it has been mostly reliable and feels surprisingly good. Robust and well built, it gets a 7 out of 10. Practicality is also basically non-existent, it ultimately gets a 1 out of ten and this is a tough question because there is literally nothing else on the planet like this car, so who knows. what it's worth is an on-road race car experience like no other, and yet $250k is a lot of money, it gets a six out of ten, but it's still hard to assign, giving it a daily score total of 16 out of 50.

Add it up and the score obtained is 62 out of 100 and this is where it compares to other crazy cars focused on the track, the monkey beats the aerial atom, but loses to real vehicles with interiors and windshields, without However, the monkey has almost the best. weekend score of all of them, the monkey is a very focused vehicle for a very specific buyer and it certainly doesn't work for everyone for some people, however, it is the ultimate dream car.