Today is the day of 2JZ-swapped 2020 Toyota Supras, apparently. This morning former D1GP champion Diago Saito stood beside a fresh A90-gen car, gleaming 2JZ in its heart. And before the day is over so stands... former D1GP champion Masato Kawabata beside a fresh A90-gen car, gleaming 2JZ in its heart.
Like Daigo, Kawabata is one of the top talents in professional drifting, probably in the history of professional drifting. He’s the person behind the wheel in one of the various “perfect drift” videos that knock around the internet, a champion, and the R35 GT-R he drove seemed to stand a good head above just about everything else in Japan for a while in terms of professionalism of its build.
He is also one half of one of the more dramatic and damaging crashes in pro drifting history, for which Kawabata was taken off in an ambulance for whiplash, per D1GP’s official report. The other half of the wreck, again keeping this narrative tight, was Daigo Saito:
In any case, here’s the Kawabata Supra, transitioning from bone stock to gutted and heart-transplanted by the end of the video:
Obviously the build is not yet complete (just as Daigo’s build is not), but this is a big deal in the world of pro drifting, with everyone having spent the past few months, hell, years, wondering who would be the first people to drift the new Supra.
But that’s all kind of inside baseball. I’m just amazed at how quick everyone is on the draw here. We’re on course to see a driving 2JZ-swapped Supra before a production car start makes it into some person’s driveway.