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Two of the most entertaining car garages have built two very different versions of the three-wheel machine. But who did it better?

The SEMA Auto Show is always an interesting affair. It is of course a hardcore off-roading convention that features some of the most amazing machines you can think of, with quite a few epic creations on show. Back in 2021, Richard Rawlings had his own machine created for the show. This was a Safari-Style Polaris Slingshot, one of the most incredible looking pieces of off-road machinery you could possibly think of. Naturally, it gained a lot of interest, but so did a build that has recently been made by Gotham Garage.

From the hit Netflix show Car Masters: Rust to Riches, the Gotham Garage crew took a Polaris Slingshot and created something entirely different. What they have come up with is a three-wheeled hot rod that has a bit of an emotional connection. But they have used the same base vehicle as Rawlings and Gas Monkey Garage. So then, the question is, which one is better?

Well let's have a look at both of these machines, and then we can have our own verdict, and leave it down to you guys to pick the one you think is the best.

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The Gas Monkey Garage Slingshot is a bit different to the one that Gotham Garage came up with. The Slingshot has a 2.0-liter ProStar engine, with either a manual five-speed or an automatic transmission. Rawlings and his team stripped the car right down to the tube-frame chassis and then rebuilt it from the ground up. And naturally, its main ambition was to go off-road, compared to the Slingshot from the Gotham Garage guys. Rawlings and Gas Monkey Garage didn’t change the power of the Slingshot, and it probably doesn’t need more power in fairness.

At the back there is a single rear-wheel so its hard to really see that handling more power. The Slingshot became an urban monster, with a lot of work done on the front suspension such as the forging of tubular upper and lower control arms. Big 35-inch tires are now on the Slingshot, that fit around the stock rims, plus a custom front bumper and eight-bulb KC light-bar were added to the Slingshot. In its epic impact orange paint coat, the Slingshot has gained what Rawlings called an “Urban Assault” character. Of course, this isn’t the only wild Slingshot build we’ve seen.

Gotham Garage came up with something very different. The creation was made for Patches, the brother of Tony Quinones (Caveman), and it was a bit of an emotional build for Tony. Most of the mods on the car are focussed on the exterior body panels of the car, with a lot of influence coming from classic 1960s muscle cars from Chevrolet. Then of course there is plenty of technical details to sink into. The plastic body panels though are now gone, and replaced by body panels fused from a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro, notably the side panels, hood and front bumper.

This certainly enhances the exterior look of the Slingshot, and creates something unusual and very different. Naturally, we are going to get a classic paint job and we have a bright orange three-wheel hot rod with white stripes down the center. The biggest mechanical change has to be the insane 30-inch alloy wheel at the back of the Slingshot, with its own custom swingarm as well. There is an extended chain drive, fused with the stock belt drive, and this all drives the new, massive rear wheel on the Slingshot. This is equally as insane a build as the Gas Monkey build.

Who did it better, really does come down to personal preference. The Gas Monkey Garage Slingshot is clearly off-road oriented, although it can go on road as well. It retains a lot of the main body panels of the original Slingshot, with of course plenty of extra additions too. The Gotham Garage build is much more focussed on the exterior itself, with one big mechanical upgrade at the rear with a few internal modifications to the mechanical. So we have one that is more exterior focussed, one with a bit of exterior and internal off-road modifications.

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It is up to you to decide which is better, but we would say there is more to be excited about in the Gas Monkey Garage build. It's an extreme design, with some pretty big changes, and it still looks different enough from the outside that we know this is no ordinary Slingshot. The rear-wheel does look cool on the Gotham Garage build, but it's almost a toned down version of the original Slingshot. Gas Monkey Garage and Richard Rawlings did a fantastic job with theirs, and it looks very cool and capable and ready to tear up the dirt.

Sources: Gas Monkey Garage, Gotham Garage, Netflix

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