Has anybody taken a close look at the rear end for the big V8 Toyota pickup? I saw one sitting in a dealer service department awhile back while I was doing a warranty inspection, and it looks almost like a clone of an HO-52. It's not uncommon for Japanese designers to borrow heavily, or sometimes even make outright copies of existing designs.
The cylinder head on the Datsun sports car produced back in the early 1960's was a perfect copy of the MGA 1500 head- - - - -they would actually interchange and run.
Jerry
Jerry, that would be a great discovery ! Hmm, I guess a person would have to disassemble one to see, sounds interesting .