We've been led to believe that the driver's seat on street cars should be one side or the other, but why? Team Mid-Drive Crisis converted their LeMons Mirage to mid-drive, and we can see that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
With a front-wheel drive car that uses a cable-operated shifter, you've already got a flat floor and no weird shift linkage to build, so the conversion isn't quite as hellish as it might be. Team Mid-Drive Crisis did a very clean conversion, with slick quick-release steering wheel and everything.
I got into the driver's seat during the Gator-O-Rama 24 Hours of LeMons BS Inspection, and the improved perspective was amazing. That got me to thinking: wouldn't this be even better on a daily driver? Sure, you'd lose one passenger seat, but you'd be able to see and reach everything on the dash, you'd be better protected from T-bone wrecks, and you'd get true stereo from your sound system. You could even put a couple of skinny seats flanking your captain's chair and increase your passenger-hauling capacity, just like those crazy Frenchmen at Matra did.
By all accounts, the Mid-Drive Crisis Mirage was a blast to drive at MSR Houston, and the double-takes it got from spectators provided entertainment all weekend.
Well, not really all weekend, because LeMons Mitsubishis nearly always blow up. In fact, Mitsubishi may well be the least reliable LeMons marque; in this case, the engine let go on Saturday, knocking the Mid-Drivers out for much of the weekend and relegating them to 83rd place out of 122. Still, we see great potential for this concept. Mid-drive Eldorado, anyone?