Real-life Mario Kart in Japan

If anyone was to dress up as Mario and Luigi and take to the streets in go-karts, it would be the Japanese. Sure they did spawn the little Italian lad.

There’s nothing like finishing a hard day’s work, only to clock off and head home. But if your work for the Japanese car site Cliccar, there’s a much more enjoyable way to finish off the day, by slipping into your favourite moustache and jumping into a 55 kph go-kart, just to emulate Mario and Luigi.

Now obviously the video is some sort of advert for the ultra powerful street legal X-Karts and they really couldn’t have picked a better character to do it with. The X-Karts are originally designed 'mini sports car'. The X-Karts produce 4 bhp, which sounds measly but when you consider that the karts only weigh 95 kg, it’s more than enough. The karts are limited to only 55 kph but with a bit of tweaking you can get them up to go up to 80 kph (but we didn’t tell you that).

As the X-Karts have four wheels you must have a driver’s licence to drive it on the roads of Japan like these lads did. Don’t worry about helmets, or do, as the Japanese don’t make you wear one if you’re driving a go-kart around the streets, dressed like Mario. We wouldn’t try this around any Irish streets, but if we did, we’d wear the helmet. Not in case we crashed, more so in fear of what might get thrown at us.