Here’s a Suzuki you’ve probably never seen before. This vehicle started life as a Maruti Suzuki Omni. Maruti Suzuki is Suzuki’s subsidiary in India. These passenger vans were sold in other countries as the Suzuki Every passenger van.
This van is the creation of the guys at Holy Shift Garage. Holy Shift Garage, based in India, is a custom motorcycle and car workshop that has gained popularity for their unique and creative vehicle modifications. The garage is known for their TV show on India’s Power Drift channel, where they transform normal Indian vehicles into custom creations.
The guys found and saved this non running Omni van from heading to the crusher and decided to build the ultimate road trip vehicle. The engine didn’t run so they replaced it with a 1-Liter 4-cylinder engine after porting the cylinder heads and then backed it with an MG410 4-speed transmission. Both the engine and transmission came from a Maruti Suzuki Gypsy (a rebadged Jimny)
They wanted to lift it with larger tires, so they got a set of Maxxis Trepadors and raised the van up to the height it would need to be for the tires to fit and then made spacers to go under the springs and shocks to achieve the lift. They also extended the lower arms to get the correct camber angle for wheel alignment. The wheel wells also need to be cut out since the new tires were much bigger than the stock wheel well openings.
To compensate for the larger tires and added weight the vehicle would be carrying, the guys also used the stronger rear axle from the Gymny. The rear axle of the Gymny 4×4 has an off-center differential so that it aligns with the transfer case. Since the van was only going to be 2WD, the guys cut the axle tubes and repositioned the differential to the center of the axle. Obviously one of the axle shafts were shorter than the other, so they must have shortened / lengthened the shafts as well.
To compensate for the added height of the vehicle, the guys used wheel spacers to widen its track width. The other problem was that the Omni’s front axle had a 4-bolt wheel hub and the Gymny axle had a 5-bolt wheel hub, so the spacers on the front also converted the front axle to a 5-bolt wheel hub to match the rear wheel bolt pattern.
An exterior roll cage (exo cage) was built to protect the van and occupants just in case it should roll. A bull par was built for the front as well as a folding rack on the rear that could hold a motorcycle. All of the tube work was made from 1.5-inch DOM tubing. The front also received a huge bash plate (skid plate). A metal roof rack / basket was also built to carry their stuff on road trips.
Six fog lights were added to the front along with some LED headlights, and an LED light bar was added to the rear of the roof rack.
The drivers side sliding passenger door was welded shut, and the passenger side sliding door was converted to a gullwing door since the roll cage is in the way of it sliding open.
The rear windows were deleted and the whole thing was painted gray. The van was given the name Gymni which is a combination of Gypsy and Omni, the two vehicles that this radical van was built from.
I think the van is awesome, and likely a fun vehicle to take a roadtrip in. I found the following video pretty interesting. These guys don’t have a big fancy shop. I was especially impressed watching them doing all of the welding on the project with a torch and welding wire instead of a MIG or Arc welder.
Be sure to check it out.
