GRIND THE PAVEMENT part II

The first hurdle was to devise a way to be able to drop the height – wait for it – a whopping 30-inches. While most will see a three-inch drop as dramatic enough, Jason wanted to achieve the impossible: getting the underbelly of a Landcruiser to lick asphalt. To do this, the Landcruiser body was massaged, pummelled and beaten into submission to accept a Hilux chassis.

There’s extensive modifications to the suspension too, as Jason outlined from the beginning that the Landcruiser wasn’t going to be a showpiece, but rather a completely driveable proposition. At the rear, LLC devised a custom four-link setup. The airbag setup heralds from Slam Specialities in Fresno California, measuring 6-inches in diameter at the front and 7-inches at the rear. The main benefits of Slam Specialties’ bags are in their inherent design: they can run more than twice the pressure of conventional air bags, offer more stroke for increased driveability, as well as faster and more balanced weight control. Indeed, the ride of the Landcruiser is surprisingly supple, mimicking that of a luxury car as opposed to a vehicle so drastically modified as this is.

Compounding the headaches – and no doubt adding weeks of sleepless nights – was the fact that Jason had his heart set on fitting 22-inch rims to the Landcruiser. And rather than have anorexic, tram-like widths, Jason demanded that the rim diameters stretched to a whopping ten-inches and the tread footprint an enormous 295. When you consider their ride height objectives, you’ll start to fathom just how hard this part of the project was going to be.

“Making the wheels fit was one of the most difficult aspects of the build” Jason reveals. After commissioning Intro to fabricate the custom wheels, the daunting task of making the car fit the wheels (rather than the more conventional method of getting the wheels to fit the car) began. All four arches had to be unceremoniously cut away, with new inner front guards along with taller and wider rear tubs fabricated out of metal and welded into place. 

 In terms of the Landcruiser’s exterior, there are countless alterations that have been done, yet are subtle enough not to be immediately noticed. This is without hesitation deliberate, all done to elaborately emphasise the contours of the Toyota body. Everything from the wiper sprays, rear wiper, indicators and door locks have all been shaved. To further clean up the lines, the fuel filler was rerouted to the rear of the car, and is now hidden from view behind the passenger rear-taillight. Even the firewall didn’t escape an overhaul, and has now been flawlessly smoothened to mirror the finish of the new inner guards.

While most sane people would have been considerably chuffed with completing so many modifications, for Jason it was literally only the halfway point. After an unobtrusive coating in the standard 100 series maroon, Jason turned to the Darkness comic books to complete the rest of the exterior and interior.

Exploding out of the body is striking air-brushing inspired by the Marc Silvestri comics, and when you pop the boot you’ll see a continuation into the audio install. Cleverly done, the install gives the appearance of the white leather interior tearing and stretching to reveal a screaming corpse. Jaw-dropping to say the least.

At this point we have to agree with Jason that a book could be written on this Landcruiser. Indeed, after filling so many pages in ASM, we haven’t even touched on the extensive drivetrain modifications, the Eaton supercharger beneath the bonnet, its five LCD screens or its brake upgrade. There’s simply too much to talk about.

Which brings me back to my original point of exactly why this Landcruiser is one of the most poignant and earth-shattering cars to come out of Sydney. While 99% of enthusiasts will always remain within the comfort of bolt-on modifying, Jason and the team at LLC have snubbed the safety of convention and devised this totally insane creation. No part available? No problem, we’ll make it. Looks too hard to accomplish? Bah, it can be done. Aren’t we glad that there’s that 1% of enthusiasts that are willing to tear up the rulebook.

GRIND THE PAVEMENT part I

Say a nice friendly hello to one of the hottest cars you’ll see in a magazine. Ever.

To say that we’ve been pursuing the car you see before you for months would be an understatement. Hunting, or even begging, would be much more appropriate descriptions. And from the rumours that we’ve heard, it seems like we weren’t the only magazine hounding its owner, with everyone fighting tooth and nail to get the exclusive. We don’t know what swayed owner Jason Luttrell to opt for ASM, but let’s just say that we are proud to have a feature on what is undoubtedly one of my personal favourite cars that Australia has yet to produce.

Typically this type of fervour is reserved only for that trophy-dominating show car, or a mega-horsepower demo car produced by one of Japan’s select elite. So to have this amount of hype and fuss placed on – of all things – a Landcruiser, might seem a little bit of a waste.

That said, just one look at this thing and the interest its generated is more than justified. It is, with little doubt, one of the most neck-snapping rides you’ll ever see on the street. While most enthusiasts saddle up with a hero car and then embark on modifying one-upmanship to make their ride stand out, Jason went completely against the grain: an unsuspecting platform fitted with totally surprising modifications. And what drove him to do something so unique and distinctive? Destiny really. 

Delve into a bit of Jason’s past and you’ll uncover that his four year mission to build what has been affectionately dubbed the ‘Landbruiser’ was always going to be one of his life’s objectives. In terms of his previous rides, first there was the 1987 ‘bagged Hilux. Then a ‘bagged Triton complete with a Commodore V6 conversion. And a ‘bagged Vito van. As well as Toyota Surf which, as you would have guessed by now, was also fitted with air bags. All of them, particularly the latter, would culminate into the Landcruiser project which would end up costing upwards of 75 large. “I wanted to build something bigger and better than anything I’ve ever done before” he said. If you ask us, he’s accomplished just that.

The Landbruiser’s most striking feature is, of course, its ride height. While most might think that Jason has achieved this simply by fitting airbags, they’d be wrong. This particular project has been heaped with tribulations, with Jason having to resort to custom fabrication parts from head to toe. The mere thought of building such a car is enough to make us dizzy, and so to see such a creation in the flesh is more than unbelievable. It’s logic defying.

The ace card up Jason’s sleeve that allowed him to accomplish so many feats is that he’s a rather well-known airbag guru, founding Living Low Customs in Sydney’s West. Although the business started off out of a car port in 2005, it’s since spawned into one of the largest workshops specialising in custom air-bag work, no doubt growing in reputation as their Landcruiser’s notoriety spread across the world.

As Jason’s project was practically a ground-up proposition, there was little need for LLC to find a pristine example. And so when they came across a repairable write-off 100 Series Landcruiser with front-end damage, it was deemed to be the perfect canvas for what they wanted to achieve.

RACE DREAMS

The NSX is back, in a very big and wide way.



Honda's display stand at the 2007 North American International Auto Show was home to a car named the “Advanced Sports Car Concept”, an all-wheel-drive monster which was touted as Honda’s new halo model, set to supersede the long-serving NSX. About a year ago when pictures first surfaced of what was said to be this new Honda undergoing road tests, it was pretty easy to speculate that the chunky-looking beast covered in camouflage was the V10-powered car everyone had been expecting.

The images showed what appeared to be a front-engined two-door with the broad-shouldered stance of a bulldog, sporting twin two-stack mufflers and a whole lot of aerodynamic venting. The bodywork was taught and aggressive and looked like a mix between the compact shape of the 2008 Civic Type-R, the high haunches of a Nissan GT-R and the angular tuning accents of Lamborghini Reventón. Nissan managed to get their incredible R35 GT-R out in time, but Toyota and Honda were still in the middle of testing their next generation supercars when the global economy took a sideways step. Expensive supercars were moved down the priority list, in favour of keeping the companies functioning until sales picked up again.

The original NSX was welcomed with open arms by the world’s press. It provided the other notable mid-engined sports manufacturers, the ones with farmyard animals on their badges, with a valuable lesson; creating cars that could be as easily driven by Gisele Bündchen as Jenson Button was a good business plan. As its competitors overtook the NSX with higher performance, industry reviewers called for Honda to stop gilding the lily and create a new supercar to replace it with. It’s a shame that just when Honda were in the middle of doing just that very thing, and making remarkably good progress against the benchmark set by the GT-R, they were forced to cease development on the car indefinitely.



The NSX has gone through several small changes over its life, and has been the subject of a number of custom models, such as Spoon’s NSX-R GT, or Mitsuoka’s Orochi, a small-run produced by a small Japanese company that changed the NSX’s angular lines to an organic sports-concept. There is even a “Refresh Plan” where, for a premium price, Honda mechanics will replace the entire braking system, suspension, exterior parts or even the entire interior with brand new parts. The NSX is still used as the base for a number of front-running Super GT cars as well, so the image of the car is still strong in the public mind. It would seem like a waste to supersede it just yet, especially when you look at some of the ideas to improve it even further that have sprung up recently, namely the NSX Mugen RR Concept.

Mugen’s M-TEC headquarters, a clinical-looking white building about forty-five minutes west of the middle of Tokyo, is home to Honda’s former F1 efforts and their current Super GT campaign, as well as the development ground for the numerous Mugen parts found on Hondas around the world. It was here that a plain white NSX was stripped down and turned into the awesome creation seen here. The entire exterior of the NSX has been redesigned to “RR” specifications, which has meant that every panel apart from the roof is a different shape. The inspiration for the RR is clearly GT as well, since a normal NSX is 1810mm wide, a Super GT NSX is 1900mm wide and the Mugen NSX RR is 1950mm. The car bulges out in every direction, and takes the functional styling cues of the Super GT machines and turns them into the kind of factory-level of panel finish never before seen on a car like this.



Just one example of how much thought M-TEC put into the NSX RR can be seen under the rear GT-wing. The wide-mount wing’s base has a very neat custom piece of trim covering the base of the stanchions. This sits flush with another piece of trim on the bootlid that matches the width and curves of the widened rear fenders. Another large and well-finished piece on the car is the carbon composite roof scoop that feeds air to the air intakes on top of the engine, as well as providing cooling to the ignition system. Once you open the engine bay cover though, it’s clear that the concept for this car is a bit more extreme than just a styling job. The C32B V6 engine has been rotated 90 degrees to a longitudinal position and fitted with custom tubular extractors, just like a Super GT car. You can’t help but wonder if the designers would really have liked to stick in a Mugen V10 though.



The exterior may be quite extreme, but the simple white paint scheme doesn’t distract from the styling. The interior is not quite as subdued as that. In the midst of a sea of red suede and retrimmed Recaro bucket seats, there are quite a number of other details worth taking another look at. The steering wheel has been exchanged with one from the latest Civic Type R model, complete with carbon insert, suede trimmed rim with red stitching, and the special model signature, a red-backed Honda logo badge. The handbrake and shifter boot have also been treated to a suede covering and contrasting stitch job, topped with a custom engraved shift knob.

In a classy touch that matches the conservative outrageousness of the rest of the car’s styling, the Mugen designers updated the original dial gauges with a pair from the latest 2009 Honda Accord Euro. What makes these gauges interesting is that the needle rotates around the outside of the gauge’s circumference, rather than pivot from the middle, giving the instruments a very clean look. They didn’t just bolt in a factory cluster from another model and call it a day either, as the faces have been modified to suit the application.



The speedometer’s face measurements have been reprinted from the Accord’s 260km/h to a slightly more inspirational, if not a bit aspirational, 360km/h. The tachometer has had a couple of extra numbers attached to the end as well, and the redline moved up a few thousand RPM to suit the NSX’s high-revving VTEC engine. In the middle of the tacho is the slightly cryptic phrase “Dream, Never Ends”. Since “Mugen” translates from Japanese as “infinite” or “infinity”, I think it’s not too hard to understand what they mean, especially if you take a few steps back to look at the bodywork.

Even though Mugen clearly labelled the brochures that were handed out at the Tokyo Auto Salon show with the word “concept”, and have stated that they don’t have any plans to sell the parts seen on the car to NSX fans, you can’t help but wonder about the amount of work that has gone into the RR. Could it be possible that someone in one of the offices upstairs at M-TEC might just sign off on that idea to make a limited-edition Super GT-inspired street car? If its purpose was simply to inspire though, the NSX Mugen RR Concept is the stuff of dreams.