This Toyota Hilux Might Soon Be The Fastest Toyota Truck Ever Made!

Even if you’re not instantly familiar with the Chuckles Garage name, you’d know their vehicles. Amongst a sea of ridiculously awesome custom cars from a range of different marques, their most famous creation ‘Old Smokey’ was a 1,200hp diesel-powered F100 that tragically suffered a pretty savage wreck at this year’s Pike’s Peak Hillclimb event, but little more than a week later the crew have unveiled their latest project on their social channels.

Continuing with their insatiable appetite for speed, the team have built a Toyota Tacoma/Hilux with the Bonneville Salt Flats in mind.

Unlike Old Smokey which cross-bred the Ford chassis with a Cummins turbo diesel donk, the Taco’ retains it’s Toyota heritage with a 1,300hp methanol-sipping 2JZ-GTE, and while the famed Toyota six cylinder can make astonishing figures using largely factory internals, the six-pack in the ‘Yota has been spiced up sevenfold to cope with the stresses of land speed racing.

To be clear, these engines aren’t like your average drag engine that might see full noise for ten or so seconds at a time. More like racing boat engines, land speed motors are punished at full load (full boost and substantial RPM) for miles at a time.

As such, the bottom end is beefed up with a billet crank and forged rods. Hanging off the head is a Garrett G45-1500 turbo that runs through a custom water-to-air intercooler, while supplying the methanol has been left up to no less than 12 2,600cc injectors and an Australian-made Kinsler cam-driven fuel pump supplied by Platinum Race Products.

The graphics, aero package and smoothies on the outside give the truck a decidedly retro appeal, and are no doubt a nod to the early days of the American minitrucking scene - at least, that’s the vibe we’re getting!

Little else is known about the mystery machine, save for a few renderings stashed in the social archives on the Chuckles Garage Facebook page, however eighteen months ago owner and driver Scott Birdsall posted up an original photo of the Tacoma alongside an early rendering of the project, proudly proclaiming “I’m going to go 200[mph]+ in this shit box!”

With the next Bonneville Speed Week event approaching in early August, we’re curious to see what the team can will this little ‘Lux along to.