(I don't think this is a repost)
So I finally got around to watching one of the two Top Gears (UK) that aired on Monday (BTW--I hate that they're doubling them up like this--I'd rather savor it). Good stuff to pass away a decent stint on my mag trainer.
Anyway--it was the UK vs. Aussie Top Gear episode and there was the commercial vehicle drag race. I'm sitting there thinking "the wheels on that Transit van look a lot like they're from an XJ220--but that's impossible". Then it launched. 
This has to be one of the most deviant, perverse, ingenious engine swaps ever. Just amazing and delightful. What a test mule!!!
Here's a backstory from google (from the pages of Octane)
We look after seven of the pre-production cars,’ says Don, proudly. ‘The first two were nothing like a 220 and had scissor doors. The third was the first one to look like a 220.’ And what’s this? It’s a Ford Transit. Don explains. ‘We went to TWR to buy the last engine and some spares. “Is there anything else?” we asked. “Only the secondhand engine in a van,” they said. I thought they meant an engine on a pallet that happened to be in the back of a van, but it’s a complete XJ220 under the Transit shell.‘It was an XJ220 mule. They were going to scrap it when TWR was liquidated but I rescued it. It looks just like a twin-wheel Transit apart from the XJ220 wheels, and it’s road registered.’ The Transit XJ220 once did 179mph around the Millbrook test track’s bowl, and it made an appearance at last year’s Festival of Speed in the livery of Goodwood’s usual Transit fleet.
