Auction Watch • 1996 Geo Metro V8 • Cars & Bids
55 HorsepowerWas Never the Plan
Somebody pulled the three-cylinder out of a 1996 Geo Metro and stuffed a 303-horsepower LS4 V8 where the back seat used to be. It just sold on Cars & Bids for $16,000. It's missing one thing, so I added it.
Breaking news from the bad-ideas desk
LS Swap All the Things
I'm a Honda guy now. My yellow Honda Beat is mid-engine, rear-wheel drive and makes 63 horsepower from a three-cylinder. I love it for exactly that reason. So when a 1996 Geo Metro with a mid-mounted V8 showed up on Cars & Bids, I felt seen, and also attacked.
Here's the rundown from the listing. Red 1996 Metro hatchback with a gray interior. The factory 1.0-liter three-cylinder and 3-speed automatic are gone. In their place, behind the front seats, there's a GM-sourced LS4 5.3-liter V8 and a 4-speed automatic driving the rear wheels. Cadillac DeVille 16-inch wheels out back, 13-inch wheels up front, flared rear arches with air intakes, a sunroof and a clean Illinois title. It shows 21,900 miles on a five-digit odometer. It's street-legal. The seller says so, and so does Illinois.
Here's my hot take: this is cheaper horsepower than a Corvette Z06, and it badly needs flames. The first part is math. The second part I already fixed. See the top of this post. That's AI art, not the real car, which is plain red.
What you're looking at
The Car That Was Built to Be Cheap
The second-generation Geo Metro was built at the CAMI plant in Ontario, a joint venture between GM and Suzuki. The listing calls it a "wallet-friendly (if not particularly refined) entry point" into new car ownership, which is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about a Geo Metro.
The stock Metro made 55 horsepower. That's not a typo. That's less than my Beat, and my Beat is a kei car with an engine the size of a large soda.
The LS4 is the strange cousin of the LS family. GM built it from 2005 to 2009 for front-wheel-drive cars like the Pontiac Grand Prix GXP, Chevy Impala SS and Monte Carlo SS, and it's the only small-block LS mounted sideways. According to GM Authority, it makes 303 horsepower and 323 lb-ft of torque. Mounted crosswise behind the seats, it becomes a mid-engine powertrain. Somebody built a budget Lamborghini layout out of a Monte Carlo and a commuter car, and I respect that.
The main event
The Back Seat Is Now a V8
Open the hatch and there's no cargo area and no back seat. There's a 5.3-liter V8 with a red engine cover, staring at the driver through a firewall. The seller lists the rear seats as removed, which is the understatement of the year.
The Metro's radiator moved out back too. Jalopnik reports it sits behind the perforated rear bumper, which the listing describes as having "holes cut into" it. Jalopnik called it a slice of Swiss cheese. I'd call it functional cheese.
And the gas has to go somewhere, so there's a fuel cell in the front where the engine used to be. Same idea as a Beetle or a 911, just with more Geo.
I'm a CPA, so here we go
Price Per Horsepower
Anyone can buy a fast car. The question is how much you pay for each horse, and that's where the Metro gets dangerous.
There's another reason the math matters: this looks a lot like a Metro that made the rounds in early 2022. Jalopnik and Motor1 both covered a red 1996 Metro with an LS4, Cadillac DeVille parts and a fuel cell up front, built by a guy in Wisconsin who said he bought the car for $200 in 2020. He was asking $7,000.
| The Price-Per-Horsepower Audit | Damage |
|---|---|
| What the builder reportedly paid for the Metro (2020) | $200 |
| Asking price, Wisconsin classifieds (Feb 2022) | $7,000 |
| Final price (sold Nov 2, 42 bids) | $16,000 |
| Factory Metro, 1.0-liter three-cylinder | 55 hp |
| LS4 5.3-liter V8, as rated by GM | 303 hp |
| This Metro, dollars per horsepower | $52.81/hp |
| 2019 Corvette Z06 bidding the same morning ($60,000 bid, 650 hp) | $92.31/hp |
| 2021 Lamborghini Urus bidding the same morning ($127,000 bid, 641 hp) | $198.13/hp |
| Cheapest horsepower in the table | The Metro |
The $200 and $7,000 figures come from Jalopnik and Motor1 coverage of a red, LS4-swapped 1996 Metro built in Wisconsin in 2020–2022. It matches this car (same engine, Cadillac DeVille rear wheels, front fuel cell), but I'm calling that likely, not certain. Corvette and Urus numbers are live bids from the Cars & Bids sidebar the morning of Nov. 2, not final sale prices. Horsepower ratings are factory numbers.
The Verdict on the Math
Even at the final price, the Metro cost a little over half as much per horsepower as the Corvette Z06 bidding the same morning and about a quarter as much as the Lamborghini Urus. Is it as good as either? No. Is it funnier than both put together? Yes, and I have the spreadsheet to prove it.
The snark section
Things I Noticed, in No Particular Order
The fuel cell is held down with a ratchet strap. I'm not an engineer. I am a guy who has used a ratchet strap to hold down things that were less flammable than gasoline.
The "rear firewall." From the photos, it looks a lot like shiny bubble insulation. It's between you and a V8. I trust it about as much as I trust a Geo Metro to stop from highway speed.
Manual windows and manual locks. Cars & Bids lists these as "equipment." Three hundred horsepower, crank windows. Perfect balance.
The sound system is missing. The seller lists it as a flaw. I think it's the best feature. The sound system is now a 5.3-liter V8 sitting right behind your ears.
It hit a deer in 2015. Carfax says "minor damage." That was back when this was a three-cylinder, so the deer probably barely noticed.
The emissions warning. Cars & Bids says it may not pass emissions in some states. In Montana that reads less like a warning and more like a recommendation.
About 100 miles since 2021. The seller has owned it for about five years and driven it about 100 miles. I get it. I'd be scared too.
Meet the sales team
Our AI Salesman Would Like a Word
Every great car needs a great salesman. Since the seller didn't provide one, I made one, and he's ready to put you in a flamed Metro today.
Receipts
The Listing, Before It Disappears
Auctions end and listings go stale, so here's a capture of the listing from the morning it closed, with the seller's name and location blurred. Every real photo in this post comes from the Cars & Bids listing.
The hammer drops
How It Ended
42 bids, and it closed at double the $8,000 bid from that morning. If this is the same Metro that was listed in Wisconsin for $7,000 in 2022, somebody turned a $200 Geo into a $16,000 Geo in about six years. The flames would have been extra.
Final thoughts
Would I Buy It?
No. I have a mid-engine three-cylinder and a big, fat, slow Lexus, and I'm saving every spare dollar for the Fund the 40 jar. I don't need a Geo Metro with a V8 in the back seat.
But I'd want to drive it. Once. With flames.
See the Listing
The full Cars & Bids listing has all 112 photos, including a video. If you end up owning this thing, flames are on me. Well, the AI version is. Bring it to Montana and I'll bring the camera.
All car photos are from the seller's Cars & Bids listing. The flamed car and the salesman are AI artwork.
Drive Fast · Take Chances · Never Lift.
