$1,500 1951 Chevy Styleline Swapped with A Lexus LS400 Chassis?
If you thought this Chevy/Lexus hybrid wasn’t crazy enough in itself, wait until you see it drifting at the Hoonigan Burnyard.
If you have ever wondered what a truly unique build might look like, this might just be it. Hoonigan have brought out a crazy build which looks like a 1951 Chevy from the outside, but is a Lexus LS400 from a mechanical standpoint. Does that make any sense at all? Not in the slightest and that might be the best part about it. This combination was built by Jake Caldwell over at Spare Parts Speed and we are glad we get a chance to take a closer look at how this thing works at Hoonigan‘s Burnyard in Irwindale, California.
Jake starts off by explaining the purpose of this build and how he managed to get it done for so cheap. This Lexus’ inital function was to be an extra beater car to fill in the gap for the shop when their primary drift car was under repair or broken. He said that a friend sold him the car for extra cheap, so Jake slowly started building the Lexus up with the extra money. He added a limited-slip differential, modified steering knuckles, and a hydraulic e-brake to start.
They then decided, well, it would be really cool if they could just chop off the entire body and put something else on top of it to make it more interesting, without losing the functionality. Jake started look around on Facebook and ended up finding this 1951 Chevy Styleline body for $400. He said that he built this crazy combo in 65 days, start to finish in the garage without a lift.
The question on everybody’s mind at this point must be, how did they manage to make this unibody LS400 work with a body-on-frame Chevy? Well, Jake explains that the Lexus wasn’t too bad to chop off as it has connection points where the body meets and he simply added steel reinforcements to the areas where the body was cut. With that, he welded together the body of the Chevy onto the floorpan of the Lexus and added a rear roll cage for some extra rigidity.
The paint is also not “paint” per say, but a oil-based paint additive called Penetrol that he used as a pseudo clearcoat, which was painted on with a paintbrush. This build is honestly next-level kooky and we love it. For all the drifting action, please watch the full video, its so entertaining, you might watch it twice.
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