One of the cars we’ve been most hyped to see debut at Street Machine Summernats 38 is Jay Duca’s LX Torana hatch – slammed on a Nissan 180SX floor and rocking Mercedes diesel power!

In just eight weeks, Jay took a factory V8 LX Torana hatch shell, grafted the strut towers and most of the floor from a Nissan 180SX S13 under the car. It’s riding static at the insanely low height with Shockworks coilovers, and has been setup for drifting.

“That’s really what it is, it’s a drift car!” says Jay. “That’s why it has no carpet in it, this is not a carpet kinda car. I just build cars for me, and I hope even those that don’t like what I’ve done can appreciate what has been done to it and the effort, so many people have donated their time and taken holidays to help.”

If the stance wasn’t enough to upset the purists, the 3.0-litre Mercedes OM606 diesel engine might just do the trick. “I’ve always been interested in them, so this seemed like the perfect project to use one,” says Jay. With a big hairdryer pushing 60psi, Jay says the engine is tuned to 600hp and a whopping 900Nm of torque.

Unusually for a drift car (not that anything is normal here), the transmission is a ZF 8HP. The eight-speed ‘box can be used in both automatic and manually-shifted modes, and as Jay already has one in his 2JZ-swapped Honda Odyssey drift car, it was his gearbox of choice.

The rear end is a full Nissan S13 subframe and IRS diff setup nicked from the 180SX, perfect for drifting. Despite the sills sitting on the ground, the car itself is heavily channelled and raised, so both the diff and transmission pan sit significantly higher than the fabricated floor.

As you’d expect, a Torana build in this vein has attracted a lot of attention on social media, and with Jay documenting the build on his Low Standards YouTube channel, opinions haven’t been hard to find.

“Lots of people love it, and of course heaps of people hate it, which is fine to me,” says Jay. “What’s more important to me is that the guy who gave me the shell just wanted this car to make it to Summernats, he was never able to do it himself. So he’s stoked, and between that and all the people who have given me a hand throughout the build, that’s the best part for me.”

We’ll have a more detailed story on the LX coming to the magazine soon, and you can check out Jay’s latest video from his channel on the Torana below: