Fredric Aasbos 1200hp Formula Drift Car

When it comes to building a brand new drift car from a stock ride, if you’re not actively involved in the building of a car, most of us don’t know exactly what all goes into such a project. However, thanks to the guys at Hoonigan, we get to see nearly everything that it takes to convert a stock 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback thanks to this Build Biology walk-through with none other than Stephan Papadakis himself, who spearheaded the build, including the real-wheel drive conversion.

The first thing you’ll notice about the car is the exterior, which is surprisingly stock, given the extreme appearance of the car. While it does have plenty of carbon fiber panels, they were actually molded from the factory pieces. Other than the wide body fenders, the body is basically what you will see from the factory when this car hits the market.

Diving into the interior, you can see that the stock interior has pretty much been scrapped in favor of an all-business racing cockpit to enable the driver, Fredric Aasbo, to do what he does while drifting the car. The cooling system is really trick, having the radiator moved into the rear of the hatch along with the fuel cell to put some weight out back for grip. The radiator pulls air from under the car and sends hot air out of the vented rear window.

Moving forward, we’re treated to an up-close look at the driver’s compartment, where only a small section of the stock dash remains. Even the pedals, which are drive-by-wire, have been upgraded in favor of the trick aftermarket pedal assembly. Papadakis gives us a look at the electronic dash and the on-board electronics as well, giving us a glimpse of what Aasbo sees while slinging the car around the track.

Finally, we take a look under the hood, where some more insane modifications have taken place. As you know, the Corolla is a front wheel drive car, but this one has been converted to rear wheel drive, meaning the engine had to be rotated 90 degrees to send power rearward. This obviously necessitated some custom brackets and fabrication, including a turbo kit that pushing the 2.7 liter engine to make 1,000 horsepower after introducing a little nitrous to the fun.

This is a great, in-depth look at this car and what all it took to get it on the track, where it’s already taken a win as of the time of this video. That’s the mark of a winning team, taking a build from stock to the winner’s circle in just three short months.