A humble compact hatchback almost devoid of styling, the Toyota Starlet might be one of the most misleadingly named cars in history. But it’s also the perfect platform for a hill climb car, as Finnish outfit VHTRacing Engineering has shown with this second-generation P60 Starlet.
Mikko Kataja and his wife Kati have been running this car in hill climbs around Europe for years, and even made it to Pikes Peak and Mt. Washington. It used to have a modified Toyota 4A-GE—the 1.6-liter inline-four used in the AW11 MR2 and multiple generations of Corolla and Celica throughout the 1980s and 1990s—but in 2023 the Katajas switched to a custom 2.7-liter V8 based on a Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle engine, built by Radical Precision Engineering.
VHTRacing Engineering via Facebook
First spotted by Engine Swap Depot, the V8 retains the 81-millimeter bore and 65-mm stroke as the inline-fou …
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Author: Stephen Edelstein
