There is only one true crossover! And that’s the mega track

It’s hard to imagine a greater contrast between what a brand calls itself and the kind of cars they make. French company Mega is known for its small electric vehicles, but they lived up to their name with the Mega Track in the 1990s.

Then Mega showed that the term crossover can be more than a hollowed-out marketing tag twirled around on jacked-up hatchbacks and station wagons.

Mega track with 6.0 liter Mercedes V12

The Aix-les-Bains manufacturer produced the Mega Track between 1992 and 1995, a wonderfully extreme and eccentric cross between a Lamborghini Countach and a Lamborghini LM002. Strange fellows, those Gauls.

Mega stuffed a 6.0-liter twelve-cylinder Mercedes-Benz into the track and mated it to permanent four-wheel drive. With an output of 395 hp and 500 Nm of torque, the off-roader would accelerate to 100 km/h in 5.0 seconds. Its top speed is limited to 250 km/h.

As wide as a Hummer H1

The track looks quite compact in photos, but the terrain hangman is absolutely not. The Mega is almost 5 meters long and approaches the width of the Hummer H1. The tape measure reads 2.2 meters from side mirror to side mirror.

With an “empty” track, the scales range up to 2280 kilos. If you close the 110-liter tank and get behind the wheel, you will probably see almost 2500 kilos.

Only five copies of Mega Track

Only five units of the Mega Track were built, but even fewer of its successor, the Monte Carlo, saw the light of day. Exactly how many is not known, but the count probably got stuck at two or three.

Mega Tjaffer provided income

It’s not unreasonable to assume that Mega only lost money on the track and in Monte Carlo. Luckily, the Mega Tjaffer, a Mehari-like cart, which sold around 150 examples in the Netherlands, provided some revenue.

The model is spartan, has a plastic body and is based on the Citroën AX. Customers could choose between front- or all-wheel drive in combination with a 1.1 or 1.4 petrol or a 1.5 or 1.8 diesel.