1972 Hilux Swapped with a Miata Chassis that Drifts?
A turbo 1.8L from Miata sits nicely in a first-generation Hilux. Why not just swap the whole subframe front and rear while you’re at it?
There is something about crazy swaps that peak our interest here at Yota-Tech. If you know anything about the Toyota Hilux, the first couple of generations featured engines that were dead reliable and could last hundreds of thousands of miles, but were far from inspiring. If your Hilux was making anywhere near 100 HP, it was running healthy and that was that. What happens when you throw all that out the window and get a little crazy?
Well, the team at Driftworks over in the U.K. did exactly just that. They aren’t just known for the outlandishness of their builds, but also the pure quality that they put into a project. This 1972 Hilux is no exception. The team was thinking of what kind of swap to do in this truck and although they specialize in LSx-based swaps, they decided that would simply be too much for the little truck. Somewhere down the line they figured that a 1.8L fit nicely in the engine bay and started to notice that a lot of the Miata chassis parts actually worked well on the body of the pickup. Next thing you know, there was a Miata/Hilux hybrid. Thanks to Hoonigan on YouTube, we get to learn a little bit more about how this swap actually functions so seamlessly.
This Hilux is actually imported from South Africa to England. The owner wanted the purpose of this truck to be something unique and “stupid” that would catch people off guard. His standard was it needed to be reliable, but still fast enough to drift. The Miata engine came to mind and a couple of weeks later they were essentially doing a body-drop of the Hilux onto a Miata chassis. Some minor modifications needed to be done like the gear shifter linkage to line up properly to the driver’s seating position.
Miata gauges and switches, a hydraulic e-brake, bucket seats to replace the stock bench seat and somehow the result was a “drift truck”. The last thing you’d expect from a 1970’s Hilux is to hear a turbo fluttering violently as you shift gears. We love every little part of that and we hope this build inspires many more like it! The quality of the work is really impressive so we recommend to take a couple minutes to watch the full video. It’s that good of a Hilux.
