Japanese tuning shops never fail to impress us with their expertise and attention to detail, and this Toyota AE86 Levin turned into a professional drift racer is no exception.
You might think that putting a 1.6-liter three-pot under the hood of a four-decade-old hatchback is easy – after all, engines were larger in the past than they are now. However, the team still had to move the steering rack for the swap to work as intended, as well as to fabricate some engine bay parts and let the exhaust escape through a pipe in the hood.
In its standard guise, the Toyota GR Yaris engine for Japan makes 261 PS (257 hp / 192 kW), but Oto Kunihiro – the owner of the car – claims this one churns out a bit more thanks to higher boost pressure. A six-speed manual transmission taken from a Toyota GR86 conveys the momentum to the wheels.
A look inside the cabin reveals a full roll cage, while body decals make the three-door hatch resemble the modern GR Supra racer. If those side mirrors, fenders and rear axle looks familiar, that’s because they were all borrowed from a Toyota Crown.
According to the video, the tuning shop currently builds two such drift cars simultaneously. One of them will be used for training, while the other one – the one featured here – will participate in serious drift races.