This 1000bhp Twin-Engined Toyota Sera Is The Ultimate JDM Mashup

Take a Toyota, add one engine from a Nissan and another from a Honda, and you have, well… this
Twin-engined Toyota Sera - front
Twin-engined Toyota Sera - front

Toyota, Honda and Nissan. For years, they’ve been the ‘big three’ of the Japanese car industry, akin to VW, BMW and Mercedes in Germany, or GM, Ford and Chrysler in the States. Largely, they’ve spent their years as competitors, but now, there’s talk of two of them – Honda and Nissan – merging. Our kind of merger, though, is this custom, twin-engined Toyota Sera that invites all three manufacturers to the party.

The Sera, should you need a refresher, was a front-wheel drive coupe sold in Japan between 1990 and 1996. An otherwise fairly normal car, it’s best remembered for its butterfly doors that served as direct inspiration for those on the McLaren F1.

Twin-engined Toyota Sera - rear
Twin-engined Toyota Sera - rear

The doors aren’t the standout feature on this particular Sera, though. Not even close. It’s the work of Circuit & Dreams CLR, a tuning shop located in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo. Named the Twin Dragon, it’s powered by that most complicated of setups: an engine at either end, independently powering each axle.

Up front is Nissan’s SR20VET 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot. Thanks to high-lift cams, forged pistons, an uprated fuel system and a bigger turbo, it’s making around 533bhp. Then, grafted into the car’s rear is a Honda K20A, the 2.0-litre four best known for powering the EP3 Civic Type R. It’s also been turbocharged, as well as fitted with forged pistons and racing cams, and as a result is producing around 483bhp.

Circuit & Dreams CLR team with twin-engined Toyota Sera
Circuit & Dreams CLR team with twin-engined Toyota Sera

Both engines drive their respective axles through separate Honda six-speed gearboxes, meaning this thing’s sending over 1000bhp to all four wheels. Of course, all the work needed to fit two entire engines and gearboxes into the relatively small Sera means there’s no room left over for trivial things like bodywork, with only the Toyota’s distinctive glassy canopy and signature doors still intact.

One might assume this is all for show – after all, the Twin Dragon was on display at the recent Tokyo Auto Salon. Not so, though – a video from back in August last year, when the car was still in development, shows it ripping some mighty four-wheel drifts. Clearly, this thing’s been made to be driven hard.

Remote video URL

We’ll never cease to be amazed by the creativity and sheer determination shown by the Japanese tuning industry to make stuff like this a reality, and we can’t wait to see what CLR comes up with next.

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