She's 40 years old this month. I go by the door tag that says she was built in March, 1985, but I've never tried to dig deeper to see when she was built in March. Toyota could most likely tell, but they're not saying.
She has an interesting story.......
I bought her and drove her home on New Year's Eve, 2012, so I've really had her about 12 years and a few months. I looked at about a dozen of them, and all of them either had a rod knock, rust holes you could put your fist through, trashed interiors that looked like they'd held raccoon fights, really bad body work, missing parts, or all of the above.
She was owned by the original purchaser for 27 years, and mostly had the typical maintenance a Toyota gets. She came with a shoe box full of receipts, so I was able to determine when some of the parts had been replaced, but I considered it a spotty record at best.
The original owners lived in Redlands, CA which is in San Bernardino County, which is a very dry, hot area, so NO RUST! They sold her to a single Mom who bought it as a bribe for her teenage son. If he finished High School, got his Driver's License, and a job, she would have given him the car and taken care of the maintenance, insurance, and licensing. Needless to say, that didn't happen, so she sold it to the guy I bought it from.
He said he'd bought it "To Restore", but judging from the JDM Honda Civic he drove up in, I doubt it. He said he was being forced to sell it because his girlfriend squawked about having to park her brand new Accord in the street, while his two off-road trucks, his three motorcycles, his boat and trailer, and his two other Honda Civics were taking up all the parking spaces at their place. He wanted $3500 for her, and while he said he knew I'd take excellent car of the and fix it up, nut if I wouldn't pay the price, he had "Ten kids lined up who wanted to buy it and drift it".
OUCH! A fate worse than death for these cars!
So I coughed up the Benjamins, and brought her home.
It's been a fun ride!
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Congrats to Ms. Swan. Where was this picture taken? She looks pretty nice.
ReplyDeleteThe picture was taken at "Supras in Vegas" on Dyno Day. She generated 142HP at the rear wheels.
ReplyDeleteMight be the cleanest 27 year old car I've seen.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting there! I'll be happy to get the Fisher receiver finished up so I can jump back on it full-time.
DeleteBe careful of the garage snakes.
ReplyDeleteHAH! They were banished over a year ago. Thank you St. Patrick!
DeleteThe nice thing is you can 'see' the progress you make when doing restorations!
ReplyDeleteThe most tedious part is cleaning things. Under hood was a grease pit, caused by leaks before I owned her. The biggest improvement there came when my son and I rolled her out in the driveway and pressure washed the engine bay. Prior to that, I'd been spraying Gunk on the dirtiest places and scrubbing them with a stiff brush. We couldn't believe all the crud that came off during the pressure was. After we rolled her back in the garage I had to pressure wash the driveway!
DeleteShe looks better each time you post. Good on ya!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rev. Paul. Slow and steady wins the race!
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