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MEET THE LS3 'RIDICULUX'
Lloyd dreamed of a fire-breathing LS-swapped daily driver that could tackle any terrain but unlike most, his dream is quickly becoming a reality!
The Toyota HiLux has long been regarded as one of the toughest utes on the planet, a claim that’s been playfully pushed to the limits by the Top Gear team and amplified by a series of iconic ads that made the ‘unbreakable HiLux’ a household name.
As any true blue Aussie will tell you though, rural Australia can be a cruel mistress and a rugged sheila to boot, with farmer Lloyd Polkinghorne quickly finding out that his HiLux was a bit more of a city slicker than he’d hoped.
“I bought a brand new HiLux and was unhappy with what you get for the money,” states Lloyd in that classic country straight shooter style. “I was on an irrigation farm with hard-packed clay soils and standard suspension only seemed to last 12 months before it gave out, so I wanted something indestructible that would soak up anything I threw at it.”
“Sadly, my farming career was cut short due to a traumatic brain injury and pituitary gland damage,” he continues. “While laying around in hospital I thought; “well, you only live once and I seem to be running out of lives so if it’s going to be built, I had better get someone to do it for me.”
That’s where Fekete Fabrications came into the picture, with Bendigo-local Robi Fekete quickly shoe-horning an LS3 between the HiLux’s strut towers while hiding a serious King-based suspension setup beneath them, turning Lloyd’s dreams of a ‘Ridiculux’ into metallic madness.
Out the back you’ll find the same faultless workmanship, with the perfect touring storage solution supported by a custom Fekete Fabrications adjustable rear coilover setup that would look more at home in a trophy truck.
“As a farmer, I loved building and designing things,” Lloyd adds, “and I’d always wanted to build the ultimate ute. I wanted something comfortable for the family with practical storage but I loved drifting around the farm too, so something that could make big power reliably with common components was a must. With the cost of repairs to common rail diesels and their sensitivity to fuel, I thought an LS3 was the perfect choice.”
With demands ranging from daily driving with the family to pummelling through a paddock at pace, Lloyd came across the Nitto Trail Grappler M/T as one of the quietest and toughest mud-terrain tyres on the market, settling on a 295/70R17 after crunching the numbers to achieve the largest legal rolling diameter increase possible.
That’s right, the Ridiculux will be completely engineered and road legal, and we will be following this build on the Nitto blog as it unfolds, so stay tuned!
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