When you see these new articles coming in, you’ll see that it’s necessary that the cars will have nicknames because there’s so many of them in my fleet to keep track of.
This car kind of found me. Back in fall 2020 my buddies were at a checkpoint for their semi annual cruise (I didn’t attend this specific day) and a guy was doing lawn care. He saw all of those Japanese classics lined up in the parking lot and tells them he has some old Toyota sitting in his yard and is looking to sell. A bunch of guys there knew exactly who should buy it, and they messaged me. I was there the following weekend to pick it up.
It’s a 1984 SR5 auto with 108k miles. I jokingly call this a peasant mobile because it’s my first ever complete SR5 (all previous purchases were GT-S or conversions) and it was also my first automatic. It was driven by seller’s grandmother until she passed away at age 92 in 2006. Sat for 14 years until I got my hands on it. Seller had the original champagne paint covered up.
Unfortunately this car sat queued up for another 2 years until I could complete other projects on the list. I had to replace the corroded carb and tank full of varnish and it fired right up.
It’s been about 6 years since I had an AE86 on the road and I had missed those memories. It was a great experience to bring this back to life after 16 years of slumber and not needing major work.
I had pizza cutter wheels in storage collecting dust for 14 years not having the right car in my fleet to put them on, until I found the 13″ steelies on the SR5 were rusting badly and not holding air.
I had focused on keeping this as a simple weekend driver and get back to fixing other cars…
…Until a deal popped up where I could install 8/6.5k lowering springs and T3 camber plates…
This car has a short history of my work on it due to only being on the road for the past 6 months. I do not have any major plans for this car in the near future, I just want to drive around and enjoy it.
