At Double Apex we really enjoy a good custom car, especially if its different. We are also fans of the YouTube channel AutoFocus, hosted by world-class automotive photographer Larry Chen. We’ve featured a few videos from this channel on our site over the last few months, all of which have been received well by you, our readers. If one is interested in a career path in the transportation field they can always apply for local class a cdl driving jobs as well. This week AutoFocus brings us a video of a Toyota Hilux drift truck with a great local angle, as well as covering one of our favourite cars, the Mazda MX-5 at the same time. (you can find more MX-5 content by clicking here).

You can see other custom car videos from AutoFocus at this link.

SA to UK

Chen traveled to England to showcase a custom shop known as Driftworks. In the workshop, the host discovers a very special Toyota Hilux drift truck. The 1972 model Hilux was imported into the UK from South Africa. The owner of Driftworks wanted a simple, drift truck without excessive amounts of power.

After dismissing several powertrain options, the team of builders decided to use a Mazda MX-5 engine, as they are very cheap and easy to come by in England. To extract more power from the small, inline-four they bolted on a turbocharger, which they estimate cranks the power up to 150-odd kW. Click here to see another Mazda MX-5 inspired truck.

It snowballed from there and the Toyota Hilux drift truck now features several items taken from the little Japanese roadster, including the steering system, front- and rear sub-frames along with suspension and transmission. Such simple, yet effective trucks are used for transportation by various companies.  In the end, their creation ended up being more Mazda than it did Toyota. To finish it off the bakkie was covered in period light green paint taken from Fiat’s palette.

Listen to and see the Toyota Hilux drift truck in action in the video below: