Lextreme II
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I found this article from a google search and this is what it came up. This car is very local to me. Check it out.
With the fuel pumps buzzing and the engine idling, the car vibrates like a plucked guitar string and the exhaust sounds absolutely wicked. With the firing impulses exiting either side of the car in a harmonious tenor, it's loud — really loud — but the sounds are good ones.
We've just strapped into one of the most unique hot rods ever built, a home-built Lexus-powered, tube-chassis-ed, Toyota Corona-bodied, open-wheeler.
"I always wanted a 1932 Ford," says 46-year-old Mitch Allread, the man behind this wild machine. "But I didn't want just another '32."
Mitch is referring to the gazillion mirror-image street rods that now litter America's Saturday night cruises. These days most hot-rod builders are all ordering the same parts from the same vendors, so most cars look alike. When your creativity doesn't extend much beyond deciding which 800 number to call, of course your car is going to be — yawn — ordinary.
So instead, Mitch took what he had, which happened to be a 1968 Toyota Corona two-door coupe, and turned it into something like what a classic '32 Ford coupe hot rod would be if there had never been a Ford. Or a 1932.
In other words, he produced something completely and obviously different.
Fully Fabricated
By trade, Allread is a racecar and hot-rod fabricator working out of his own shop, Newhall Welding, in Newhall, California. He builds components that wind up in NASCAR Nextel Cup machines, complete cars that run in various circle track series on the West Coast, and hot-rod components. This blue Toyota is the first complete hot rod he's assembled and the first car he's built for himself. So, no surprise, his Corona has a lot more Allread in it than Toyota.
"I had the car and used it as transportation," he explains. "I sold it and the guy who bought it from me just let it sit. Then he gave it back to me and I started thinking about what to do with it." That was back in 1999.
What he did with it began by building a racecar-style tubular mild steel space frame with an integrated roll cage. At the front of the 106-inch wheelbase (the stock Corona wheelbase was just 95.3 inches) chassis, he installed a set of unequal-length A-arms on either side, which he fabricated himself, that use Carrera shocks and AFCO coil-over springs as the suspension medium.
At the other end, a Speedway Engineering "Big" quick-change solid axle is located by three links and a Watts linkage and uses Carrera shocks inside AFCO coil-over springs similar to those in the front. The steering is a RGP rack and pinion system, while the brakes are Wilwood 12.2-inch vented and cross-drilled discs at each corner with six-piston calipers squeezing the front pair and four-piston units acting on the back set. Both the brakes and steering lack any power assistance whatsoever.
Providing brawn is a 4.0-liter, double-overhead cam, 32-valve V8 from a 1992 Lexus SC 400 coupe hooked to that car's standard four-speed automatic transmission (Lexus has never offered a V8 with a manual transmission). Rated at 250 horsepower by Lexus back when it was new, the engine hasn't been touched by Allread except for the removal of items like the power steering pump. Mitch also fitted an Allread-built exhaust system downstream of the stock exhaust headers. It funnels waste gases down the car's spine into an X-pipe and then out into the atmosphere through holes in the car's side panels.
If Allread wanted he could remove the body from the car altogether and it would function just fine. But the body is an adventure in itself. Obviously, the point here wasn't to create the quickest hot rod with the most ludicrous power plant available but to produce something that could be driven every day with utter reliability and unexpected sophistication.
If this car had a small-block Chevy V8 in it, it wouldn't have been worth building in the first place.
Not Just Another Corona Shell
The Corona may be barely remembered now, but it and the Corolla were the cars that established Toyota's reputation in America during the late '60s and early '70s. The Corona wasn't just a familiar presence back then, it was ubiquitous. And no Corona looked like Allread's.
Chopping the roof 3.5 inches would have been enough to ensure that Allread's Corona was unique, but he also virtually dispensed with the front fenders — using just the leading edge of each and a section of the hood narrowed 17 inches to form the front grille shell. The rest of the hood was ditched entirely.
The wheel openings on the rear fenders have been opened slightly to accommodate the larger and relocated rear tires. In fact the only sheet metal on the car that hasn't been touched are the doors and the trunk lid. "I bought a four-door Corona to get the trunk lid," said Allread. "I took the trunk then threw the rest of the car away."
There's no glass in the car as both the windshield and rear window have been replaced with Lexan. The single windshield wiper is a marine unit and the Laserstar projector beam headlights sit behind the grille's orange mesh. Similar orange mesh fills the tail panel between the taillights and those are 1959 Cadillac Eldorado units. Well, they're actually reproductions of 1959 Cadillac taillights ordered through the J.C. Whitney catalog. The sideview mirrors and front turn signals come from an aftermarket superbike parts catalog.
The parts aren't the story here, they're just the pieces that Allread used to put together an inverted variation on the classic open-wheel roadster street rod. It sort of looks like an open-wheel modified dirt track racer from the '70s crossed with a Lexus and painted like one of John Weir's Gulf-sponsored Ford GT40 or Porsche 917 endurance racers. It's not a car for everyone, but it's very much a car for Mitch Allread.
Drives Like a Hot Rod
The Lexus V8 has a reputation for being about the smoothest-running engine available to the general public. It's a deserved reputation, but even a Lexus V8 emits some fascinating vibrations when it's bolted to a lightly insulated hot rod with solid engine mounts.
Getting into Allread's creation takes either limber maneuvering, or ample lubrication, or both. As you snake past the roll cage and under the low roof (the car is only 47 inches tall) your glutes will find one of two JAZ racing seats inside. Each is upholstered in orange silicone rubber just like the ceiling and floor.
Because the transmission and exhaust system share the center tunnel, it's so wide it forces both occupants' legs toward the outside of the car. The accelerator pedal is just a knob on the end of a lever, while the brake pedal is drilled, both are billet aluminum. The stock Lexus shifter sits atop the tunnel near the driver's shoulder while the steering wheel sits low near the thighs. The instrumentation consists of five AutoMeter white-faced gauges that are easily read, and the manually operated turn signals work off a toggle switch near the floor-mounted shifter.
Of course there's no way to adjust the wheel or seat — this is a car built for Mitch Allread by Mitch Allread and it's tailored specifically for Mitch Allread.
Still, it's an easy car for anyone to drive, with good visibility to the sides and front, even if the low roof makes seeing overhead traffic signals tough. The manual steering takes some manly heaves to operate at low speeds, but the Nitto NT45 front tires are a rather modest 215/45ZR17 size and the car only barely has to be rolling for the steering to become easy and very precise. Go around a corner and there seems to be plenty of grip. Go over a bump and the front end feels soft while the rear end seems stiff.
Any car powered by a Lexus engine is likely to accelerate with the grace of a Lexus and Allread's concoction does exactly that. Spinning the rear 255/50R17 Nittos just slightly, the car bites down and passes 60 mph in just 5.6 seconds and completes the quarter-mile in 13.8 seconds at 101.2 mph. That's not rocket-ship performance, but still pretty damn quick and about what we expected from the 2,171-pound car with 4.11-to-1 final drive gears.
A Hot Rod Not for Everyone
Surely most people don't have the ability Allread has to perform such extensive fabrication, or the determination to see such an ambitious project through from its start to its completion five years later in December 2004. Few would also have the vision to see potential in a car as obscure as the '68 Corona.
Of course, being different, by itself, isn't enough in the hot-rod world. The trick is to be different and interesting and compelling and to build a car that works well. And that always takes more effort than money. Always. Allread reports his cash investment in the car is probably just under $20,000 in parts. But he has about 2,000 hours of his own time — all done after business hours — in the car.
And to prove it works well, Allread drove his Corona from the Camarillo Airport where we tested its acceleration down to Irwindale Speedway for our photo session. That's a 69-mile drive through constantly clogged Southern California traffic. The Corona never spewed coolant, it never stuttered or stalled, and it grabbed attention like a Paris Hilton hamburger commercial.
It may not be an ideal everyday street car, but after that drive we're convinced it could be used every day. And as far as the state of California is concerned, it's still a 1968 Toyota Corona.
Mitch Allread's Corona is weird in the best way possible.
With the fuel pumps buzzing and the engine idling, the car vibrates like a plucked guitar string and the exhaust sounds absolutely wicked. With the firing impulses exiting either side of the car in a harmonious tenor, it's loud — really loud — but the sounds are good ones.
We've just strapped into one of the most unique hot rods ever built, a home-built Lexus-powered, tube-chassis-ed, Toyota Corona-bodied, open-wheeler.
"I always wanted a 1932 Ford," says 46-year-old Mitch Allread, the man behind this wild machine. "But I didn't want just another '32."
Mitch is referring to the gazillion mirror-image street rods that now litter America's Saturday night cruises. These days most hot-rod builders are all ordering the same parts from the same vendors, so most cars look alike. When your creativity doesn't extend much beyond deciding which 800 number to call, of course your car is going to be — yawn — ordinary.
So instead, Mitch took what he had, which happened to be a 1968 Toyota Corona two-door coupe, and turned it into something like what a classic '32 Ford coupe hot rod would be if there had never been a Ford. Or a 1932.
In other words, he produced something completely and obviously different.
Fully Fabricated
By trade, Allread is a racecar and hot-rod fabricator working out of his own shop, Newhall Welding, in Newhall, California. He builds components that wind up in NASCAR Nextel Cup machines, complete cars that run in various circle track series on the West Coast, and hot-rod components. This blue Toyota is the first complete hot rod he's assembled and the first car he's built for himself. So, no surprise, his Corona has a lot more Allread in it than Toyota.
"I had the car and used it as transportation," he explains. "I sold it and the guy who bought it from me just let it sit. Then he gave it back to me and I started thinking about what to do with it." That was back in 1999.
What he did with it began by building a racecar-style tubular mild steel space frame with an integrated roll cage. At the front of the 106-inch wheelbase (the stock Corona wheelbase was just 95.3 inches) chassis, he installed a set of unequal-length A-arms on either side, which he fabricated himself, that use Carrera shocks and AFCO coil-over springs as the suspension medium.
At the other end, a Speedway Engineering "Big" quick-change solid axle is located by three links and a Watts linkage and uses Carrera shocks inside AFCO coil-over springs similar to those in the front. The steering is a RGP rack and pinion system, while the brakes are Wilwood 12.2-inch vented and cross-drilled discs at each corner with six-piston calipers squeezing the front pair and four-piston units acting on the back set. Both the brakes and steering lack any power assistance whatsoever.
Providing brawn is a 4.0-liter, double-overhead cam, 32-valve V8 from a 1992 Lexus SC 400 coupe hooked to that car's standard four-speed automatic transmission (Lexus has never offered a V8 with a manual transmission). Rated at 250 horsepower by Lexus back when it was new, the engine hasn't been touched by Allread except for the removal of items like the power steering pump. Mitch also fitted an Allread-built exhaust system downstream of the stock exhaust headers. It funnels waste gases down the car's spine into an X-pipe and then out into the atmosphere through holes in the car's side panels.
If Allread wanted he could remove the body from the car altogether and it would function just fine. But the body is an adventure in itself. Obviously, the point here wasn't to create the quickest hot rod with the most ludicrous power plant available but to produce something that could be driven every day with utter reliability and unexpected sophistication.
If this car had a small-block Chevy V8 in it, it wouldn't have been worth building in the first place.
Not Just Another Corona Shell
The Corona may be barely remembered now, but it and the Corolla were the cars that established Toyota's reputation in America during the late '60s and early '70s. The Corona wasn't just a familiar presence back then, it was ubiquitous. And no Corona looked like Allread's.
Chopping the roof 3.5 inches would have been enough to ensure that Allread's Corona was unique, but he also virtually dispensed with the front fenders — using just the leading edge of each and a section of the hood narrowed 17 inches to form the front grille shell. The rest of the hood was ditched entirely.
The wheel openings on the rear fenders have been opened slightly to accommodate the larger and relocated rear tires. In fact the only sheet metal on the car that hasn't been touched are the doors and the trunk lid. "I bought a four-door Corona to get the trunk lid," said Allread. "I took the trunk then threw the rest of the car away."
There's no glass in the car as both the windshield and rear window have been replaced with Lexan. The single windshield wiper is a marine unit and the Laserstar projector beam headlights sit behind the grille's orange mesh. Similar orange mesh fills the tail panel between the taillights and those are 1959 Cadillac Eldorado units. Well, they're actually reproductions of 1959 Cadillac taillights ordered through the J.C. Whitney catalog. The sideview mirrors and front turn signals come from an aftermarket superbike parts catalog.
The parts aren't the story here, they're just the pieces that Allread used to put together an inverted variation on the classic open-wheel roadster street rod. It sort of looks like an open-wheel modified dirt track racer from the '70s crossed with a Lexus and painted like one of John Weir's Gulf-sponsored Ford GT40 or Porsche 917 endurance racers. It's not a car for everyone, but it's very much a car for Mitch Allread.
Drives Like a Hot Rod
The Lexus V8 has a reputation for being about the smoothest-running engine available to the general public. It's a deserved reputation, but even a Lexus V8 emits some fascinating vibrations when it's bolted to a lightly insulated hot rod with solid engine mounts.
Getting into Allread's creation takes either limber maneuvering, or ample lubrication, or both. As you snake past the roll cage and under the low roof (the car is only 47 inches tall) your glutes will find one of two JAZ racing seats inside. Each is upholstered in orange silicone rubber just like the ceiling and floor.
Because the transmission and exhaust system share the center tunnel, it's so wide it forces both occupants' legs toward the outside of the car. The accelerator pedal is just a knob on the end of a lever, while the brake pedal is drilled, both are billet aluminum. The stock Lexus shifter sits atop the tunnel near the driver's shoulder while the steering wheel sits low near the thighs. The instrumentation consists of five AutoMeter white-faced gauges that are easily read, and the manually operated turn signals work off a toggle switch near the floor-mounted shifter.
Of course there's no way to adjust the wheel or seat — this is a car built for Mitch Allread by Mitch Allread and it's tailored specifically for Mitch Allread.
Still, it's an easy car for anyone to drive, with good visibility to the sides and front, even if the low roof makes seeing overhead traffic signals tough. The manual steering takes some manly heaves to operate at low speeds, but the Nitto NT45 front tires are a rather modest 215/45ZR17 size and the car only barely has to be rolling for the steering to become easy and very precise. Go around a corner and there seems to be plenty of grip. Go over a bump and the front end feels soft while the rear end seems stiff.
Any car powered by a Lexus engine is likely to accelerate with the grace of a Lexus and Allread's concoction does exactly that. Spinning the rear 255/50R17 Nittos just slightly, the car bites down and passes 60 mph in just 5.6 seconds and completes the quarter-mile in 13.8 seconds at 101.2 mph. That's not rocket-ship performance, but still pretty damn quick and about what we expected from the 2,171-pound car with 4.11-to-1 final drive gears.
A Hot Rod Not for Everyone
Surely most people don't have the ability Allread has to perform such extensive fabrication, or the determination to see such an ambitious project through from its start to its completion five years later in December 2004. Few would also have the vision to see potential in a car as obscure as the '68 Corona.
Of course, being different, by itself, isn't enough in the hot-rod world. The trick is to be different and interesting and compelling and to build a car that works well. And that always takes more effort than money. Always. Allread reports his cash investment in the car is probably just under $20,000 in parts. But he has about 2,000 hours of his own time — all done after business hours — in the car.
And to prove it works well, Allread drove his Corona from the Camarillo Airport where we tested its acceleration down to Irwindale Speedway for our photo session. That's a 69-mile drive through constantly clogged Southern California traffic. The Corona never spewed coolant, it never stuttered or stalled, and it grabbed attention like a Paris Hilton hamburger commercial.
It may not be an ideal everyday street car, but after that drive we're convinced it could be used every day. And as far as the state of California is concerned, it's still a 1968 Toyota Corona.
Mitch Allread's Corona is weird in the best way possible.
