Time for another one of our favourite types of builds, where the mad scientists of the car world decide to take two unsuspecting cars and morph them into a single automotive frankenstein. I’m talking, of course, about chassis swaps. This time it’s a Toyota Starlet having it’s insides removed, while a Volvo 240 donates it’s underpinnings and drivetrain, giving us a RWD Swedish powered Starlet.
Thanks to Jose for submitting.
When I first stumbled across Liam’s Cefiro build it was still in it’s infancy, and I remember thinking to myself “I hope he goes through with this”. As we all know, time and time again build threads are started but sadly not finished, however this was not to be the case. In a matter of months the thread detailed the transformation of a very stock looking Cefiro into a 1JZ powered, kitted and slammed drift/street machine. The updates came in thick and fast, with great photography and a very cool shared workspace, the build is now close enough to completion to be enjoyed by the masses…
Following-on from the last build, here’s another Subaru powered build for your reading pleasure. The only difference is this time the turbocharged flat-4 isn’t sitting in the front of another Impreza, it’s in the back of a Porsche Boxster. This Boxster was bought with a blown motor, so the swap was intended from the get-go. The car is being built to be competitive on the circuit, while at the same time testing the reliability of the engine conversion for future public release.
Thanks to Ben for submitting. Wanna see more Porsche builds? Click here.
The humble little Opel Corsa (or Holden Barina in my country) was designed to be used as an affordable and efficient means of transport, nothing more, nothing less. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tear it apart and fit a turbo-charged AWD drivetrain from it’s bigger brother, the Calibra, which is exactly what this Swedish builder did…
When you start off your build thread with a picture of a stonking great big turbo, you’re sure to grab peoples attention. The sizable huffer in question belongs to an Audi Quattro that started it’s life as a long-wheelbase model before being stripped to a bare shell, shortened, and built back up into a full-house race car. What’s with the title of the post? Well this project started out on the second floor of a garage, using a large trap door to raise/lower the car, hit the pics below to see for yourself.
Thanks to King for submitting.
Fredrik, from the build-thread-rich forum known as Zatzy, emailed me his project late last year. A Volvo 480 is a car I’ve never seen or heard of before, but after learning that this specific car was converted from FWD to RWD with a B234 engine and BMW ZF gearbox, I was more than interested.
For more RWD conversion builds, click here.
It seems the there are many members of the Honda fraternity who still undeniably love the marquee, yet are quite bored of the whole FWD thing. On this website alone there are 3 other builds documenting Hondas being DIY’d away from their standard drivetrain layout. There’s a front-engine RWD F20C CRX, a mid-engine rear wheel drive DC2 Integra, and an AWD Twin Engine Del Sol. This latest build uses a mixture of those combinations, giving us a mid-engine rear wheel drive CRX. Honda, are you listening?
Thanks to Daniel for submitting.
For most people, a 950cc motorbike would be more than adequate in the power stakes, but ‘adequate’ isn’t a term commonly used in the vocabulary of a modifier, is it? Why settle for adequate when you have the means to slap a turbo on the side of your KTM and produce a one-off boost-fed supermotard? Come and see how a former race mechanic works his magic on his own personal machine with some very neat and OEM looking fabrication. Thanks to Jake for submitting.
Did you know this is the 10th bike build featured on Build-Threads.com? Click here to see the others.
From the same forum that brought you the Viper powered Saab 93 Wagon comes another frankenstein build. Function-over-form readers will be pleased to notice the absence hectic stance, bags vs static arguments, ground clearance measurements or rusted body panels. This Golf is different…very different. I’ve featured a few MKIII Golfs before, each with their own impressive qualities, but none as all-out as this one with it’s Volvo T5 power, a change in driveline direction from FWD to RWD, and a whole lot of one-off fabricated goodness. I think I’ve made up my mind, when I die I want to be reincarnated as a Scandinavian car builder. Race quality fabrication, bodywork, carbon fiber…is there anything they can’t do?
Attention tech-heads, here’s one for you. If you like CAD drawings, stress-tests, loading simulations, suspension pickup point design, and a whole bunch of other stuff that’s way over my head, then you’ll enjoy this build. This is one mans quest to design and build his own mid-mounted turbo LS1 powered track car over in Germany, reminding me a bit of the previously featured Bentley Speed 8 replica build.
Thanks to James from carthrottle.com for submitting.
