When I first saw this video pop up in my YouTube feed, I only saw one word I needed to know: JUDD. Ever since I first learned what a Judd engine sounded like (which was the 14,000 RPM BMW 1-Series hillclimb racer that Georg Plasa raced), every time I see that name, I press play. Judd engines not only rev like a hell-bent crotch rocket on a land-speed pass, but they have an anger to them that is difficult to put into words properly. This isn’t just a race engine. It doesn’t just make race engine noises. These engines sound pissed off every second the pistons are pumping up and down. Idle, low revs, high revs, full-throttle blasts, all of it. They make the noise I’d expect a mountain lion to make the second the tranq dart hits the hindquarters, the kind of noise that makes the guy holding the dart gun contemplate the consequences of his actions and grateful that metal fencing stands between him and 150 pounds of wrathful feline.
The last time Ryan Tuerck popped up on our radar, he had taken the engine from a Ferrari 458 and shoved it into the nose of a Toyota GT86. This time around, it’s more-or-less a Toyota Supra A90 (the new one) with a full carbon fiber body, a sequential six-speed, and a 4.0L Judd GV4 V10. That’s about 730 horsepower and an 11,000 RPM redline from an engine that originally started out powering Dallaras. Don’t know what those are? Think 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, LeMans…cars often referred to as Daytona Prototypes. All of that potency is going to a drift car build. Agree? Disagree? One thing’s for certain: we could listen to this banshee all night long.
