The Fiat 600 is usually a modest little car, tiny and rounded off, and powered by a miniscule 633cc engine in the rear that blasts out a mighty 28.5 horsepower. But the 1959 Fiat 600 that will be auctioned next week during Barrett-Jackson’s Northeast sale in Connecticut is something else altogether. Call it a resto-mod or a stoplight sleeper, this Fiat is a scaled-down version of the street-rod formula of shoving a powerful drivetrain into a small, ordinary-looking vehicle.

The car is the beneficiary of a performance transplant by a builder who took a Mazda 12A rotary engine, most likely from an RX-7, and made it fit into the cramped engine bay of the Fiat, with some alterations such as removing the rear seat. Power is now rated at 220 horsepower from the performance-modified engine, and with a total weight of about 1,300 pounds, the car is “an absolute missile,” according to the description in Barrett-Jackson’s catalog.