Meet Kevin: The Coolest Kei Van On The Planet

Enter NIGHTRIDE, a bunch of car-nuts from Poland obsessed with style, stance and building anything and everything they can on their ever-growing YouTube Channel. They don’t really stick to just one style or niche, with build series ranging from the humble Nissan s-chassis, tyre munching BMW 3 series, big VIP slammed sedans and even the odd Lada just to name a few. Their most famous and loved build however, is Kevin.

You think you’ve just about seen it all when it comes to wild engine swaps on the net, and then Kevin appears in your social feed. It seems like the guys never really stopped to think “how” or “why” and just dove straight into stripping out the little Daihatsu HiJet with the intention of powering the thing by a Yamaha FZR600 motorcycle. Why not hey?

Now don’t expect Kevin to win any top-elite paint and bodywork awards, but some of the actual fabrication on this thing is bloody epic. The 600cc Yamaha remains totally intact and is mounted directly to the floor of the van. The rear end of the bike is directly welded to the chassis, and the front end has a custom made rod that sits through the front forks (yes, the front wheel and tyre is still on the bike for whatever reason) and is connected to some more welded chassis brackets. 

Kev also sports a pretty cool bolt in roll-cage (again, because of course it does) which has some more mounting points just to ensure the bike stays secured. The only real planning the guys had was to colour match the body work of the bike and van, slam the thing on some tiny Japanese wheels (with some super aggressive negative camber) and that it absolutely must have a set of straight pipes hanging off the back of it. 

Getting the thing to work properly wasn’t the easiest task, with different ideas and iterations tested out over the build series on YouTube. A whole host of mechanical wizardry  means the thing operates exactly as a car should - three pedals, a steering wheel and a gear stick. 

The intricacies of exactly how it works is far beyond my mechanically-limited mind, but lucky for you there is an absolute stack of video content documenting the entire build process. I for one am just bloody glad this thing exists, and now I want my very own Kevin. If you spot a banged up HiJet on Facebook marketplace, send it my way (or better yet, please don’t).