Toyota has been one of the top OEM supporters of SEMA, the aftermarket advocate and trade show organizer for years. The SEMA Show has been canceled this year (since 2020) but that doesn’t mean the parade of wildly custom cars has stopped. Instead, it has moved to an online format called SEMA 360, giving companies a chance to show off the project cars they’ve built all year round.
Today, a custom Toyota is much more of a lift truck than a slammed Celica or MR2. Building on the popularity of overlanding or the life of a self-sustaining off-roader, Toyota has created a supercharged Tacoma capable of 370 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque.
To take this mobile base camp to remote wilderness it is equipped with a Toyota E-locker differential, suspension lift, BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain tires and aftermarket upper and lower control arms. An aluminum skid plate from nose to tail, aluminum bumpers and rock sliders keep the rig protected from Mother Nature. To avoid sticky situations, there is a 40-inch LED light bar and a winch should that not be enough. Finally there is a folding roof tent, a rack system to haul all the essentials you need and the mandatory snorkel.
At the other end of the modding spectrum, Toyota has put together a trio of sports cars, starting with something called the Ornamental Conifer GR Supra. As far as we can tell, it’s just a Supra painted with a bunch of hypebeast slogans you’d find on $ 150 T-shirts sold on Fairfax Avenue in LA. Billed as a pop culture outfit collaboration, it appears to offer zero performance upgrades.
The same cannot be said for the two remaining Supras, which follow a much more traditional adaptation theme. While both are built for the Formula D drift series, tuners at GReddy and Papadakis Racing have revamped their respective GR Supras with vastly different parts. After all, drivers Ken Gushi and Fredric Aasbø will compete against each other when the 2021 season kicks off.
The famous Japanese tuning house GReddy has boosted the stock 3.0-liter straight-six with a massive BorgWarner EFR 9280 turbo and the mill mated to a sequential six-speed gearbox. A Rocket Bunny wide-body kit sits over a modified chassis and suspension, and Rays Gram Lights wheels to keep things dramatic when riding sideways.
While Toyota hasn’t announced any output for the GReddy Supra, its sibling in Papadakis Racing boasts an insane 1,033 horses and 908 lb-ft of torque. That’s quite a bump over the stock 382 horsepower and 368 lb-ft, and can be attributed to fully custom engine internals, more generous fuel injectors, and custom engine management.
Toyota says this is just the first batch of SEMA specials it plans to unveil. There will be a second wave in about two weeks.