Starlets are cultish old schoolers. In America the Toyota is a bit of a rarity, hitting the scene from 1982 to 1984. It was a front-engine, rear-drive economy commuter that was most at home sipping fuel, not burning rubber. But that rear-wheel drivetrain and super lightweight chassis made it a mad swap candidate. The most popular motivator is the Corolla GT-S 4A-GE, but swapping in a Supra motor makes sense on a basic level: it’s rear drive to rear drive.

The Starlet before us is not a KP61 but a 70 Series, its successor, and the first Starlet to suffer the indignity of front-wheel drive. So swapping a Supra 2JZ in one of these will take some fortitude… and some big blow torches.

Enter Jakob Hansen. We came across the Danish drag racer’s exploits on Engine Swap Depot. He tasked J.H. Rullefelt, a local fabrication and tuning shop, with taking a built-and-boosted 2JZ and mounted it transversely in the Starlet. This is no sleeper. When you’re running dually fender flares or something off a Peterbilt on the front of your hatchback, you have issues. There is, no doubt, substantial chassis work beneath the body work, but could some manner of shortened axles be brought into the picture?

This vintage of Startlet came stock with 1.0-liter and 1.3-liter “big-block” four cylinder, so jumping to 3.0 liters is quite a leap. There is no info on power output, but since the car’s previous 4A-GE netted 600 horsepower we expect the 2JZ to deliver 700 at the least.

The featured video shows the 2JZ Starlet on the dyno during a tuning session. The below video shows the car at the track in its previous 4A-GE configuration. In this trim the Toyota managed a 9.98 in the quarter mile.