Celica Project 1974

What restoration project would be complete without a total accounting of the process ?

Documented, blueprints, cost totals - all timeline related details. Here it is (nothing like documenting spending thousands of dollars on a car that was bought for hundreds ).

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June 1983 -
Heres where it began. High School grad gift for college from my parents.
Boy, what a car. Per my father he paid $2200.00 for it. From what I remember I bondo’d a front spoiler, side skirts, changed the interior over to black (to include new carpet), rebuilt the engine (18-RC), P185 70R15s front and P225 50R15s rear with Cragar spoke mags - 15x7 front and 15x10 rear, rear
spoiler, Gabriel air-adj shocks, stereo system with 16x9 Pioneer rear, 8" Jensen front, Pioneer GM-120 amp.

Off at college, it was stolen from the parking lot of USF. They located it in Plant City, Florida about 3 days later. Stripped many interior and engine parts, rims, rear seat, console, antenna, stereo, rear deck, even the A/C unit.

I couldnt bear to leave it in the junkyard, so I bought 4 junk rims and tried to drive it home. Broke down on the side of the road, and a guy in a mobile home on the side of the road gave me $200.00 for it as is. He said it would be for his girlfriend. He never met me to sign the title over, and about 2 months later I got a letter from another tow company stating they had towed it. I couldnt afford $75.00 to get it out of the towyard, so that was it. Game over.

These pictures are the only ones I have of the car. What a shame.

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December 22, 2006 -
Purchased the car for $750.00. Merry Christmas to me :)

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December 26, 2006

Spent the day cleaning it and going over the car. Trying to figure out basically a plan of action.
No money spent though.

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January 1, 2007
Pulled out the interior to include seats, rear panels, center console, AC dash vent, and carpet.

Also pulled my back. What a pain (no pun intended).

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January 13, 2007
Decided to put some seatcovers on and paint some console pieces. Nothing permanent but just to help make it a little more driveable. Took the boys out for a drive. Cost today included paint, front and rear seat covers, car cover, steering wheel cover - $80.00.

Total to date - $830.00

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January 18, 2007
Began looking for carpet and found some at www.autocarpetonline.com . Black 80/20 molded with a jute backing. Decent price, $150.00, and I ordered it. Arrived on the 24th. An aside is that I also located some Toyota Supra OEM ma61 wheels in California via the www.classic-celica.com website. Got in touch with the guy and it went flawlessly and I should have them soon.

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January 27, 2007

Carpet install. Here are the pics. Went well. 3 hours and not a lot of trimming - close to drop in. The molded aspect made it awesome to install.