The Mitsubishi L300 IFS is used in a lot of Hot Rods, however the L300 chassis itself is often over looked as a good basis for a custom car.  The chassis rails sit too high relative to the axle centres to be of any use in a typical hot rod, however a commercial vehicle based custom car or hot rod, it may be a viable option, where in a commercial van or pickup truck the rails do sit high and the body sits on top. It depends on what you are after.

In the case of this Morris J Van yes it was a saving going for this chassis. In the case of the J Type Van the stock chassis would never have had the strength to handle this sort of driveline.  Keep in mind what you save on the chassis work, you loose on making a custom floor for the body and then fitting the body to the custom floor. The Morris J Type you see here was completely re-engineered, the only original pieces of the Morris is the front, back, sides and the roof. It was a major build and body restoration, it involved thousands of hours and many custom made parts. Many of which feature as examples of my workmanship in the Body and Panels area of this website.

Most notible, this car drove really well, it was well balanced front to back, it went around corners really good and predictable, the driving position was nice and confortable, it accelerated like a rocket and stopped on a dime.  It was so much fun to build and drive this Morris J Van.
    
This is a good example of how you can take your dream car out of your head and turn it into a real thing. It is not for the faint hearted, or for impatient people, there is more work in something like this than anything else you could do. You need to be committed, patient, well thought out, know where you are going with it, and be well funded over the long term, because it takes a ton of hours. Do you have the vision, the passion and the tenacity to build something like this? I can build the chassis and then do all the body alterations and repairs, right up to turn key as I did with this Morris J Van.

You can find out what I am currently working on by going to our Facebook page, click on this link below to take you there.

   
This Morris J type Van is running a Holden Ecotech V6, C4 Auto and a Jag rear end. 4 Wheel disc brakes and manual steering rack and pinion.  15" alloy wheels and radial tyres.

In this example shown in the pics all of the middle crossmembers had to be removed to re-organise the driveline.  Then I had to put a K member in to make the chassis rigid and give it more strength for our intended purpose.
 
All chassis leave our workshop with the first stage engineering paperwork for Hot Rod rego from an independant automotive engineer recognised by VicRoads. A Kustom Bitz chassis is manufactured to meet the Australian Street Rod Federation national guidelines for Street Rod Chassis Construction.

Chassis Prices start from $28,000 through to $75,000AUD or more depending on style, planning, components, brake and diff options etc.
 
All work is done at an hourly rate + parts + materials + engineering.