Sometimes when a vehicle’s condition is beyond repair, we like to have a bit of fun with it once we know there’s not much left of it to lose. Case in point is this Toyota Yaris “speedster” spotted driving down the road in Tennessee, which is devoid of its roof and windows.
Based on the large dent on the driver’s side, it looks as though the car was involved in some sort of side impact collision, likely rendering it a totaled vehicle. At some point after that, the roof was chopped off and the windows were taken with it, along with a handful of other components such as the driver’s side door handle. Needless to say, removing the roof severely compromises the vehicle’s integrity, as it not only protects you in a rollover, but it also contributes a good deal to its structural rigidity in the event of a collision.
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But despite how obviously dangerous it is with no rollover or side impact protection, we have to admit that driving around a roofless Yaris looks like it would be a good deal of fun, albeit not on public roads. Aside from the open-air experience, with a few hundred pounds saved by deleting the roof and glass, the car would probably be a bit zippier in a straight line. We’d extend those weight loss gains to the handling as well, but with no A, B, or C-pillars, the Yaris has almost certainly lost a lot of chassis stiffness. As long as it’s kept off the streets, it could be a very interesting experience.
At first glance, this car looks like little more than a hack job attempt at making a Yaris speedster, which it very well could be. However, as one commenter on the original Reddit post pointed out, this could be a totaled junkyard car being used for parts, and the owner is simply trying to drive it home rather than having it towed. Regardless, we can at least commend the owner for wearing a helmet as he drives the sketchy Yaris down the road, though we don’t think it’ll help much in an accident.