FRESH VEGETABLES: Kei truck drifting at Odaiba D1

June 2, 2009 12:02 am Published by

I get the feeling some people will lose the plot over this post.

“I’m sick of Silvias and Skylines and AE86s!” they say.

“I want something a bit more unique! Something a bit weirder!” they cry.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you kei truck drifting.

“Keitora”, as everyone calls them here, is a contraction of “kei jidousha torakku”, which is the Japanese word for “compact car” combined with the Japanese pronunciation of “truck”. These little workhorses are a familiar sight in the agricultural areas outside major cities, and are usually seen being driven by old farmers with a load of fresh produce in the back. They are also commonly used by workmen like carpenters and builders, which seems to be the sort of jobs the guys who drift these cars have. I’ve heard that Team Burst’s Naoki Nakamura, who works as a landscaper, drifts his keitora every day in the mountains for practice.

This is Ishida. His Suzuki Carry isn’t as heavily modded as most of the other trucks that were there, but it was definitely the biggest sleeper of the lot. Those are Advan Neovas on those steel wheels.

The engine had been swapped for the turbo engine found in the Suzuki Every microvan, and the suspension had been modded. That’s about it, he said. He also uses the truck for his day-to-day work, which is why it’s still almost factory in appearance.

The interior is fairly standard, with only a Bride bucket seat bolted in place of the original.

He also fabricated up a neat meter panel for the tacho, boost gauge and Blitz SBC.

This guy is generally considered to be the Keiichi Tsuchiya of keitora drifting at the moment. His name is Kamisama (God) and drifts this slammed Suzuki Carry.

That’s Kamisama, with “driver one”, “tuner one” and “tuner two”. These four guys all chipped in to buy this truck together! The engine is from an Alto turbo engine with a spacer plate adapting to the normal transmission. There’s even a little intercooler under the engine, and an oil cooler on the side.

Those Hayashis are fake, if you were wondering.

Check out Kamisama’s Youtube channel to see this car in action by clicking here!

That’s a Go-Kart bucket seat in there.

Suspension is Silvia in the front, and revalved motorcycle units in the rear.

I don’t need to point out the obvious advantage of drifting a truck.

The look on his face says it all.

This is Shin33.

This sort of thing just makes you want to giggle. Look at those Panasports on the rear.

It has a Cappuccino engine, which uses the same block as the Carry. It also has a rather unique intercooler mounting location!

That says “Sato Tiling”. This is Shin’s daily work driver, as well as his drifter, and he sometimes takes it out on the Shomaru touge.

You could easily imagine this to be the interior of a Silvia if it didn’t look like a van.

Yep, the seat is bolted to the top of the strut tower.

This is Hirano, and his Suzuki looked a fair bit less agricultural than the other trucks there.

I’m not really sure what to think of this one.

It’s a truck, but it’s drifting, but it looks like a VIP car.

Even the interior has been done up in a VIP style.

Hirano works for a body shop, and he uses the truck to cart around bumpers and other car parts.

The coolest thing about these trucks were the wide range of modifications and engine swaps that everyone was trying out. This one is a Wagon R engine mounted sideways.

Internally mounted front tower strut braces? Mind your shins.

Gotta love Japan, eh?

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This post was written by Alexi

37 Comments

  • Ben says:

    so sick…. the vids are awesome, God I love this, you dont get that kind of stuff anywhere else…
    I say more key torakku features..

  • 1st off, excellent website found it a few days ago and have read every bit! secondly, what an awesome article i was watching some k-trucks on youtube the other day then bingo, you cover it 🙂 was thinking about getting a bedford rascal (uk version of suzuki carry, although we got those too in an older guise) and having a go! got to be fun, weld the diff and slide away 🙂 keep up the good work! from mike, also plugged this site on the civic forum i use as theres a lot of japanese interest on there 🙂

  • Henry says:

    I’m feelin this. Looks fun and definately keepin it grassroots! 😉

  • Luke says:

    Such a cool post Alexi, hows things going with your new job with those best motoring guys.

  • Lorenzo B says:

    Nice to see coverage on the kamisama’s truck.
    I stumbled upon his first video a year or so back, and i never knew what he had done to it besides it becoming turbo later on.
    Keep an eye out for the man who drifts his acura nsx will you?

    http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=driftingnsx&view=videos

  • JonnyAE86 says:

    AMAZING POST Alexi!!!

    Love the K car sub culture, as a Cappuccino owner, I’dd love to see more K car stuff in NoriYaro.

    Good work!

  • E. says:

    Absolutely incredible! Seeing this reminded me of the truck battle on the manga Over Rev!, only they were driving Honda trucks.

  • tgluak says:

    Holy Jesus!
    Dunno about the strut brace though

  • Hawker180 says:

    wow…just wow. thanks for an awesome article!

  • Jake says:

    wow thats really cool, but i will NEVER GET TIRED OF
    those BOVs in he video sound sooo ghetto

  • kyteler says:

    Magic. Awesome post man.

  • anth says:

    Kamisama’s Carry looks unreal!

  • Matt says:

    Ishida’s Suzuki Carry was featured on DriftTengoku Vol. 50 if I can remember right. The same one where Kawasaki was in another Kei Van doing an endo and they wen’t right over onto the bumper, all 4 wheels of the ground. Love this little Kei utes 🙂

  • BlueSlug says:

    that’s some wild stuff man! i love the ingenuity of the whole thing. the aftermarket must be so small (or simply nonexistant) so they have to custom-fab a lot of their mods. the cluster panel is very schweet!

    also seeing this stuff makes me feel less bad about having a humble little daily, even if i don’t carry fresh produce with it 😉

  • John says:

    Great post!

    These little trucks are great.

  • zack says:

    hahaha so wicked the japan will never cease to amaze me

  • Zach says:

    AMAZING! Great shots Alexi, too awesome.

  • Davy says:

    1 word. AWESOME!

  • fejjan says:

    haha thats awsome! I want one 🙂

  • JayS14 says:

    Hahahah f**ken awsome…

  • Fury-S12 says:

    was this a keitora only event/display or just a group of nutters in with the rest?

    that last one is awesome i want it lol

  • Umai Naa!! says:

    Mez would love this!

  • MeZ says:

    Ummmm

    THIS IS MY DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    :wub:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • zach says:

    man thats bad ass

    it makes me want to go buy one or take the one off my grandpas friends farm lol

    keep up the good work

  • Alexi says:

    @michael wright
    Thanks mate. Everyone else, don’t be shy about posting links to Noriyaro! I don’t mind you hotlinking a couple of pics either, as Mediatemple has some pretty extreme bandwidth available.

    @Lorenzo B
    I have Shun’s number in my phone, but it’s just a case of being able to go to the track when he does.

    @JonnyAE86
    If I see something, I’ll put it up.

    @E.
    Oh really? Which book was that in? I’ve been meaning to start buying Over Rev! from Book Off. I still have to find a couple of missing chapters of Shakotan Boogie first…

    @Matt
    Yeah, those vans were at D1 too.

    @Fury-S12
    It was kind of a halftime show at D1.

    @MeZ
    I herd you lieked kei trucks…

  • E. says:

    @Alexi
    I think it was in vol 28 or 29… not sure..

  • mario-Hrvatska says:

    Japanese are crazy. In A good way. When it comes to cars they can make anything work.

  • This only makes my love for keicars more vulgar and obscene….

  • Muzaffar says:

    That is just awesome….

  • COXY90 says:

    Now thats thinking outside of the box….

  • Ove Harlem says:

    Haha.. Nice post dude. I cant wait to get back to Japan in the spring.

  • bey says:

    i love it! please help me make my kei truck run like one of this.. thank you.

  • Graeme says:

    The rims you say are fake Hayashis they are made by topy and are old rims that are not very common nothing fake about them.

  • Cody Mathews says:

    Hello sir,

    Might I say first off thanks for all the content on youtube. I love the inside look at some of the people who live and breathe the car culture over in japan. So on to the question, In your experience have you seen anyone throw motorcycle engines into the Kei trucks? I know that it would probably nullify any kind of licencing ability but for drifting or farm use. Kei trucks are beginning to show up stateside and I do have some experience with swaps and fabrication. Wondering about tossing a goldwing or CBRR engine into a truck. Also man it is hard to find parts for Honda actys. Keep up the drifting man.