Well, I wasn’t too smart on this one. Where to start? It was cheap.
Why was it cheap? it was a mess. It was untidy, it was dirty, the bodywork was stuffed, and it hadn’t really been maintained well. I purchased it despite all this in order to fix it all up and sell it on for a profit. Sadly I ran out of care and effort so swapped it as it was.
On the plus side, it kinda ran OK. Well, under 5000rpm it ran OK. I was silly and didn’t go over 5000rpm on the test drive, so never noticed it, but when you exceed that RPM it would bog down, misfire and turn to a bag of poo. Thankfully that was an easy fix, it had a very filthy Airflow meter. Whip it out of the intake, hose it with Contact Cleaner, pop it back in and away I went, revving to redline all day every day. Speaking of which, it’s a really great engine, shame it was in such an overweight body.
So mechanically it was decent, gearbox shifted well, engine ran well and was fun to drive. It was leaking some oil from the valve cover, so I replaced that, and the cambelt needed doing, so I had Toyota do that (and they even cleaned the engine bay!). The interior was in good shape after a quick clean, although I had to change the headunit as it was old and rubbish… and the wiring was less than impressive.
The real problem was with the bodywork and wheels. The front bumper was just totally stuffed, it was from an Altezza Gita wagon, not even from this car and it was cracked and falling off. The LED daytime running lights didn’t work. The headlights didn’t match, one was badly faded and had angel eye rings (of which one was falling off and melting on the bulb), and the other almost looked brand new. The front grille was badly painted and the front guards were a different shade of silver. Not to forget that hideous black stripe up the bonnet. Ugh.
Oh and the wheels, they were decent looking SSA something-a-rathers, in 18″, but the offset was so weak that they had actually contacted the brake calipers and taken some metal off them. Not ideal.
The car did have some good bits, TOM’S adjustable suspension, a full exhaust and headers, a TRD air filter, and a Cusco strut brace.
I did purchase a new bumper to fit, but it was blue and I never got around to painting or fitting it, so I sold it separately. In the end I had just had enough of it and swapped for my next car.
Last spotted early 2018 on Trademe in the Parts section. Running on three cylinders and although a bit rough, its actually looking better than when I sold it.
Update 15/3/20 – Unfortunately it appears this car met its end due to an expired registration exemption, which lapsed 1 year ago.