The Beginning

I've always had a fascination with older Toyotas.  What's older?  Try 1974 and older. Everything from Corollas to Crowns, the Hilux, Coronas, and the Celica (and more).  Out of all of them, the first two years of the Celica (1971-1972) were always my favorite.







A lot of this all started when I was younger.  My uncle had a 1972 Celica that he was very fond of.  It wasn't his first one, but it was one I always remembered.  It was the neatest little sports car any kid my age had ever seen (at least according to me).

Recently I've been looking for another project to work on.  I spent the better part of a year scouring craigslist and looking at various sites looking for the perfect old Toyota to bring home and see what happened.

I kept making excuses along the way:
"They want too much for this one."
"This one is too far away."

On and on.. Ultimately I realized, if I was going to put time into a project, I'd really rather have an old Celica to work on.  I'd owned a few over the years and had collected a myriad of hard to find parts.  This and just my general overall interest/obsession with them pretty much nailed it down for me.

I started expanding my search on craigslist.  I would occasionally find one several states away, but it'd always be gone before I could act on it.

I then remembered that my uncle still had the Celica I knew from my childhood.  After weeks of internal dialogue with myself I finally managed to work up the nerve to contact him and see if he'd ever be willing to part with it.

Another month or so went by and one day he called me.  As much as he really wanted to do something with it, he couldn't seem to find the time.  He said if I was still interested, he'd let me have it as long as I was going to do something with it.

I almost couldn't get it quick enough.  I was I'd found the car I'd been after, and it was the one that created so many positive memories for me.  I knew how difficult it was for my uncle to part with it, and I'm grateful to him for making that hard decision.

It needed some work as it'd been sitting a while, but that was exactly what I was looking for.  He also had a TON of extra parts (even more than me). He also had a rare 18RG-R that he'd wanted to rebuild.

I'm going to try to use this blog to follow rebuilding this car.  It's not going to be easy as I have to stay within a budget (who doesn't), but I'm hoping I can get it figured out over the next few years.