TRD SW20 Wide-Body Origins

as far as I know and remember..

more than 50 kits were made- but due to the cost of the kits
sales were really slow

TRD USA imported 10 initially (and had 10 held as back-up in Japan)
some others (maybe 2 or 3) for the US market were shipped to SouthEast Toyota directly

the problem was that overseas people freely splashed their own copies, including some here
in the US there are 3-4 major importers and they each had their own sources
very poor quality- but enough of a base for a determined owner

some that did not sell eventually became the TRD produced vehicles

Hi groupb - my question ( to continue this thread) is related to the ultra widebody demonstrator car, and it's origins?



This car has been the inspiration for my build, in terms of body style, and i would like to know as much about it as i can - if anyone has inpt or knowledge I would be most grateful??

The car has clearly different lines to the TRD factory AND replica kits:

-higher arches;
-wider around the rear quarters;
-angle of rear quarters as they protrude outwards from the car is more horizontal, as opposed to the standard TRD kit, where the rear quarters slope down;
-body line of rear quarters is lower down the side of the car;
-front fenders also slope diagonally downwards as opposed to the horizontal fenders of the ultra wide body demonstrator;

During my build we found that the wheel arches, specifically the line above the wheel, could not be cut any higher than they have been (shown in photograph below), as going any higher would necessarily result in structural changes to the strut towers and major body surgery.



So - please can anyone help me track down the origins and perhaps current status of the ultra widebody demonstrator??

Much Appreciated

Thanks
Daz

There are a few guys on the U.S. forums who seem to have a good knowledge of the wide-body demonstrator.
I remember reading a while back that the reason this car looks so different to the factory built cars is because TRD USA didn't actually do the body work on this car themselves, they got a third party body shop that wasn't affiliated with Toyota or TRD to fit the kit.
They suggested that it looked so different because in actual fact it was fitted badly i.e. not to the exact specification set out by TRD in Japan.
I'm not sure if they did fit it badly or if they just went with their own interpretation on the kit, either way there were a good few Toyota purists annoyed by the fact that it wasn't the same as the factory built cars.

Have you got any links to their threads?

I don't have any direct links to the threads but if you try mr2oc.com or mr2.com and search for trd2000gt or widebody, you should come across some of threads.