A mad scientist’s lair. That’s the only description that you can use when talking about Bisimoto’s shop. If the survival of humanity depended on how to turn a car into a time machine, Bisi is the person I would turn to.
Born in California to two scientists, Bisi and his family moved to his parents native Nigeria when he was young. At the age of 15, he decided to prepare for the college admissions exam instead of the standard 18. Amazingly, he passed, and enrolled in college.
University in Nigeria was not challenging enough, so Bisi decided to pursue chemical engineering in the US.
Eventually earning a masters degree in chemical engineering, he secured a job in a laboratory. Bisi is too much of a social creature for being stuck in a lab all day, so he transitioned into sales. He flourished, but nothing could shake his true love - cars.
How did he fall in love with cars? Simply enough, he had developed an exhaust leak and went to an exhaust shop to see what it was. Open Pandora’s box.
We were offered the opportunity to visit his workshop this weekend and let’s just say I needed a bunch of “man moments” to compose myself.
In addition to his many accomplishments, he is responsible for building the fastest Hyundai Sonata ever at 888hp. What amazes me is his desire to engineer and reverse engineer anything to make it more efficient, unique, powerful, faster, safer, and overall more special.
Of the many cars in his workshop, there were 3 that I couldn’t stop staring at. The first was the original factory 1982 930 Slantnose Turbo sitting on Epsilon wheels.
I get weak in the knees when talking about 80s DTM, so to see a Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16V just sitting in the corner, makes me giddy. And to see its motor sitting in the corner waiting to have new life breathed upon it by Bisi, means something special is going to happen.
The other car that steals my heart is the single seater Porsche Cayman. Porsche already made the car extremely well balanced, but Bisi decided to make it even more balanced, by having the driver sit in the optimal center point of the car. A pure race car.
And finally, his MR2. This car has special meaning to Bisi, as it was his dream car growing up, thus that sentimentality means something to us.
Bisi is a gift from the engineering gods. We’re lucky to have been in his presence and are excited to see his future projects.