I had no idea Super Car
When I saw a buddy bolting on a supercharger, and he told me where he got it. = Mind blown
I had no idea Super Car
When I saw a buddy bolting on a supercharger, and he told me where he got it. = Mind blown
No crap that is badass
That supercharger fits a variety of other engines. Including the 4age. I always wondered if you could ghettocet a SC previa. Or if the awd could at least hold up to rallycross abuse.
In reply to Trackmouse:
Based off of the time period of development by Toyota and that it was one of their relatively early ventures into the mainstream passenger van market (for the US market anyways), I'd say yes. Toyota's product development cycle has always been over engineer and develop for a product cycle or two in order to build reliability accolades, brand reconigition, trust and loyalty within the market, all while carving out a sizeable chunk of market share. Once they've met their market share target they have the bean counters comb over the vehicles and production methods to see where cost savings measures can be implemented in order to increase their profit margin, as the return on invest in cost savings measures at that juncture yields a higher margin then attempting to increase market share within a product segment.
All this means is that their early entries within a segment are generally superior to later model vehicles.
I knew it was Previa All-Trac as soon as I read the thread title.
Straight from Japan, 2006 video quality and all.
In reply to pinchvalve:
Did they all come in that red color? I can't recall ever seeing one in another color.
One of my roommates in college had one. I laughed when I found out it was mid engine. The diesel manual HiAces we had on base overseas were mid engine too.
I've only ever seen them in that blue-grey-green color like that chick drives in the movie JUNO.
In reply to The0retical:
drab light grey with the darker grey plastic rockers was also popular.
A screaming 158HP! On par with the 2017 Mazda ND!
came expecting Previa. left satisfied. 
My friend's brother had a gold Previa in high school, dubbed the 'Golden Egg'. It won the coolest car superlative in his senior yearbook, then another Previa won it again the following year.
The bad guys in "The Last Action Hero" mounted a minigun in one. Badass 1992 style!
I actually think the drivetrain is underwhelming compared to how surprisingly much i liked the interior! But of course anything boosted is generally easy to get a chunk more out of. E85 while you still can.. 
Furious_E wrote: My friend's brother had a gold Previa in high school, dubbed the 'Golden Egg'. It won the coolest car superlative in his senior yearbook, then another Previa won it again the following year.
What kind of freakiod high schoolers would vote a mini van as coolest car? I mean a mid engined one should certainly be a contender for the coolest mini van, but should a mini van be considered for coolest car?
I just don't know, and I like a mini van.
Nick (Bo) Comstock wrote:Furious_E wrote: My friend's brother had a gold Previa in high school, dubbed the 'Golden Egg'. It won the coolest car superlative in his senior yearbook, then another Previa won it again the following year.What kind of freakiod high schoolers would vote a mini van as coolest car? I mean a mid engined one should certainly be a contender for the coolest mini van, but should a mini van be considered for coolest car? I just don't know, and I like a mini van.
I think it was a vote for irony the first time, and then just became a thing after that. Tom was a pretty popular dude and the Golden Egg was well known and loved. It was certainly distinctive, if nothing else
I had to work on them. That made me hate them.
I have had to drive them and that made me hate them 
Seriously if you are over 5'5" you will spend all of your time at traffic lights hunched over like Quasimodo waiting for light changes. You can't lower the seat as it is on the engine cover. The novelty of the Star Trek cockpit wears off pretty quickly.
I spent three weeks in a Toyota Lucida Esteema traveling around New Zealand. It was great. It was not AWD or supercharged but I don't care.
everything about these vans are weird, with it being mid engine all the accessories were actually mounted up front under the hood still. everything was ran off of a jack-shaft off the front of the crank. it also used, as far as i know, the only flat 4 toyota ever made. They could also be had with a manual trans but AWD was auto only.
edizzle89 wrote: everything about these vans are weird, with it being mid engine all the accessories were actually mounted up front under the hood still. everything was ran off of a jack-shaft off the front of the crank. it also used, as far as i know, the only flat 4 toyota ever made. They could also be had with a manual trans but AWD was auto only.
Flat 4 implies Beetle/Subaru. The Previa just took a perfectly normal engine and made it impossible to service.
I still see one of those hateful things now and then. What a horrible thing to service.
Streetwiseguy wrote:edizzle89 wrote: everything about these vans are weird, with it being mid engine all the accessories were actually mounted up front under the hood still. everything was ran off of a jack-shaft off the front of the crank. it also used, as far as i know, the only flat 4 toyota ever made. They could also be had with a manual trans but AWD was auto only.Flat 4 implies Beetle/Subaru. The Previa just took a perfectly normal engine and made it impossible to service. I still see one of those hateful things now and then. What a horrible thing to service.
it was still technically a flat 4, just not horizontally opposed. But yea just looking at the engine bay aka under the front seats it looks like a nightmare to work on.
That's still an inline. It doesn't become a "flat" just because it's rotated, in my book. Flat-4 means two banks of two cylinders, horizontally opposed, and the end all source Wikipedia backs me up on this. ;-)
An inline laid on its side like in the Previa is often referred to as a "pancake" or "laydown" engine.
You'll need to log in to post.
