Toyota Chaser JZX100

Toyota Chaser JZX100 (1996 to 2001): the four-door sleeper worth chasing

The X100 Chaser is one of Toyota's "triplets", built on the same rear-drive platform as the Mark II and the Cresta, just with a different face bolted on. On paper it is a mid-size executive sedan your uncle might have driven to the office. In the real world the hot version became one of the great drift and street heroes of the era, mostly because Toyota quietly slotted a proper turbo six into a car that looks like it wouldn't hurt a fly.

Why everyone wants the Tourer V

The engine to have is the 1JZ-GTE, a 2.5 litre straight six with a turbo hung off it. Factory power was quoted at 280 PS (roughly 206 kW), which is the exact number nearly every Japanese performance car of the day claimed, thanks to the industry's gentlemen's agreement to cap it there. Torque is the real party trick, somewhere around 378 Nm from memory, and it arrives low in the rev range, so the thing pulls like a diesel and still revs out like a petrol. From 1998 Toyota reworked the 1JZ-GTE with VVT-i variable valve timing and swapped the earlier twin turbos for a single turbo, which sharpened up the bottom end without giving anything away up top.

The Tourer V is also the grade that could be optioned with the five-speed R154 manual and a limited-slip diff. That R154 is a tough old lump that shrugs off far more grunt than it ever left the factory with, which is exactly why tuners fell for the car. You get a big-torque six, a gearbox built like an anvil, a factory LSD, and four doors so your mates can come along while you get sideways. The 1JZ itself has a reputation as one of the easiest engines going to make silly power from, so most survivors have already been down that road at least once.

A few honest warnings before you hand over cash. These are all imports now and most have ticked past 25 years, so rust is the first thing to go hunting for: get underneath and check the sills, the boot floor, the rear arches and anywhere water likes to pool. Plenty have lived hard lives as drift cars, so look for kinked chassis rails and panel gaps that do not line up, and treat a suspiciously fresh respray as a hidden shunt until proven otherwise. Make sure the badge tells the truth. Verify it is a genuine 1JZ-GTE Tourer V and not a tidy NA that has had a Tourer V badge and a set of stickers thrown at it, which means checking the VIN and the engine code rather than trusting the boot lid. A tired auto is worth a fair bit less than the manual everyone actually wants, and a 25-year-old turbo six with no paperwork is a gamble, so ask for service receipts and listen for a clean, steady idle before you get excited.