SILLY SEASON

BRENDON DE RUYTER COMBINED A HONDA K24 FOUR-POT AND AN UGLY 80s CELICA TO MAKE A 1200RWHP, SEVEN-SECOND DRAG-AND-DRIVE WEAPON

- KIAN HEAGNEY

THE Honda K24 is the new hot ticket to major horsepower and reliability on the cheap, as you can pluck ’em straight from grandpa’s junker, throw some basic forged goodies in and boost them to the moon to enter the four-digit power club. That explains why Queenslander Brendon De Ruyter has slung one into his 1983 Toyota Celica to make a killer small-tyre drag-and-drive weapon.

Brendon was less interested in the Celica itself than in its potential as a base for what he wanted to build. “They’d have to be one of the ugliest cars out there, but the wheelbase was right for what I wanted, and the engine bay had enough room for the K24 and turbo gear,” he says. “So, I got it from my mate and turned it into what it is now.”

As the owner of the Auto Perfection workshop on the Gold Coast, Brendon had all the tools and know-how to get the entire driveline swap done. It wasn’t a simple job by any means, with the Sillycar copping a rear-end conversion to a nine-inch, as well as a whole new raised floor to accommodate both the diff and Powerglide transmission.

The front of the car was also renovated to accept the north-south-converted K24 Honda mill, which involved changing the original front panels for ones pinched from an AE82 Corolla. “The Celica one had all the garbage for the flip-up headlights there, and I wanted the room for more important things,” Brendon explains. We’d argue that it makes the front far more presentable, too.