Toyota Cresta JZX100 Drift. Is it Good for Drifting?

The Cresta was designed by Toyota to be a mid-size luxury sedan. You might be thinking, what does it have to do with drifting? Well, there are three things that make this car great — a well-balanced rear-wheel-drive chassis, long wheelbase, and a reliable and powerful engine.

The JZX100 Cresta was produced by Toyota and has been for sale between 1996 and 2001 for the Japanese market. The chassis itself is shared by three different models: Mark II, Cresta, and Chaser. Mechanically they were the same, only the style was slightly different. This strategy gave Toyota the opportunity to sell this platform across several different dealer sales channels to different target customers.

The Tourer V was the sportier model with upgraded suspension, limited slip differential as standard, manual gearbox as option, and the famous 1JZ-GTE engine. The 1JZ is a 2.5-liter inline-6, DOHC turbo engine that produces a standard output of 280 horsepower. It’s very friendly for upgrades and tuning too!

The Cresta handles surprisingly well for a large saloon. The long wheelbase enables the car to remain stable during sideways action and especially in transitioning from one direction to another.

Aesthetically the cars also offered a ton of potential. With the right body parts, ride height and wheels they could look badass! Making you forget all about their businessman roots.

It’s large, has four doors, looks great, sounds amazing, is rear-wheel drive and can be tuned to a safe +400 horsepower for relatively little expenditure. The whole package comes together to make for a perfect street car that can carry five people in comfort and style but is still capable of drift action wherever and whenever the driver desires.

With drift-specific suspension parts, more advanced engine tuning and a reduction in weight you can make it a very competitive drift car. In Japan, it is very common to see JZX100s achieve very good results in drift competitions.

1JZ drifting. JDM x100 クレスタ ドリフト тойота креста 100 дрифт #Drift #Drifting #ToyotaCresta #jzx100 #jzx100cresta

[TeraaHD]

JZX100 Crestas "Tourer V" model was actually called Roulant G and did not come manual from factory. Any manual JZX100 Cresta that you see was manual swapped. Obviously using the same parts from its brother chassis the Chaser/Mark II.

[ryanh]

a good rwd drift car has good stock turning radius. I'm suprised how good the turning radius is with the jzx100.

[sherwinmarlin]

@ 0:29 what year is that red Cresta, very nice 👌

[JBurney]

I just ordered one of these from Japan but it's an automatic. Anybody know which manual transmissions are commonly swapped into these? My car that's coming has the 2.0 inline 6

[mr.redeyes]

It's good for it's performance, but good whenever some crazy teacher is invovled. Expect to play ALOT of insurance.. on a vice principal's salary..