1985 Chevy G20 Van

Let’s kick off 2019 with something a bit different, shall we? How about a bitchin’ 70s van made for drift car towing duties – with more style than a Tacoma or F-truck could ever dream of. It gets a minor refresh of the mechanicals but a massive style injection in the way of paint, period-correct body kit and oh-so-dished American Racing wheels to set-off that perfect 70s look.

I stumbled upon this thread while browsing Ziptied one night. It’s so great to see people still flying the build thread flag in 2019! Follow Jason Turner Drifting on Facebook and Instagram.

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What I’m Watching: Driftworks – How to Build a Crazy Drift Car

Driftworks is one of many companies who have stepped up their vlogging game in 2017, giving us a glimpse into not only their fleet and products, but the personalities behind them. Just over a week ago, the guys released a great video of the team looking back over the build of their ASCAR-based AE86 drift car, discussing in detail the process of the build, ups and downs, etc. Enjoy!

Revisiting the ETS Drift Ute

Engineered To Slide; there’s a good chance you already follow Nigel’s blog and know all about his impressive two and four wheeled projects, both past and present. When I first started this blog, I launched it with a handful of builds already published from the get-go, and one of those was the ETS S13 Silvia, knowing that I just had to include something from his stable when I launched Build Threads.  A couple of years later I was super excited to see his new project taking shape – a scratch-built Toyota Hilux with Nissan S15 running gear – and just had to make a post about it when it wasn’t yet much more than a mockup. After many updates and blog posts over the span of a few years, I had absorbed every image and every word Nigel had posted about his one-off creation. Now here we are, years later, and it’s still just as impressive as it was when it was first completed. Nigel has just posted a retrospective post on the journey with 100 images of his choice, a perfect opportunity to re-live the build…

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What I’m Watching: The Fabricator channel

It’s like someone went and made a channel specifically for us! So far the series has videos detailing how to make a time attack roll cage and a tube frame front end, amongst other various fabrication topics. The complete Part 1 instalment of the tube frame front end video looks to be a paid video, but at over 2 hours long and less than a couple of bucks it sure does appear to be great value for money.

Check out the channel HERE.

Driftworks 2013 ASCAR/AE86

After extracting a very impressive amount of track time from their previous drift car, a 2JZ S15, the staff at Driftworks are about to embark on a properly bonkers build for 2013. Their plan is to take the chassis from an ASCAR (British NASCAR equivalent) and drape the body of an AE86 around it. Sounds like a perfect candidate for the chassis-swap post tag to me! Head below to find out how to follow their progress.

UPDATE: (March 2014) Car is now pretty much complete, and it’s amazing. New pics below.

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A tale of two Silvias

I always bang on about the elements that make a good build thread, and having nice photos is usually top of the list. But another key element to a great thread is using it as a platform to tell a story, as a reader you want to get lost in the journey and feel like you’re along for the ride. That’s how I felt when I read both of Laurence’s threads a few years ago, first about his S14 and the other about his S13. I remember briefly reading about some of his exploits on another forum – including being busted, interrogated and fined by Japanese cops for street drifting – so I was excited to see he took the time to write his stories in full on JDMST.

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BMW E46 V8 Drift build

I saw a video of this beastly creation a couple of weeks ago and the first thing that struck me about it was the appearance of the car without it’s rear bodywork. I love how the builder has almost created the car in a ute/pickup fashion, making the bodywork rear of the b-pillar detachable for easy access to the rear section of the chassis and driveline. To my delight, a Latvian reader submitted a link which showcases the build of this unique BMW (or what’s left of it), read on for more details…

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SR20 RWD Toyota Platz

I’ll admit, when I first saw an online image of this car in a Drift Tengoku magazine spread, I automatically assumed it was one of those weird front wheel drive ass-dragging drifters from Japan. But that was far from the case, you see this is little Toyota Platz (Echo/Yaris sedan) is actually powered by a black-top SR20DET, driving the rear wheels through an S13 diff/subframe.

Of course my friend Mike (resident Echo and general obscure small car guru) would be the guy to come up with a link to the build process, thanks Mike!

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ETS Drift Ute

Do you follow Nigel’s blog, Engineered to Slide? Well you should, he’s the crazy DIY fabricator behind two awesome S13 Nissan builds, one of which was part of the starting line-up of posts I made when this blog debuted. He’s just started a new project which I think you’ll be interested in, a hollowed-out Toyota Hilux ute/pickup being built around a custom chassis with a drive-line and suspension setup donated from an S15 Nissan Silvia. I’m very excited about this build because I know from Nigel’s previous work that it’s going to be finished, and finished to a high standard, this guy doesn’t muck around! Make sure you keep up with the progress by following the updates on his blog, I’ll be sure to post another update here as the build progresses further.