Finally a proper car

So I got a 1987 2-tone grey corolla gts (ae86)!!! I’am very happy to finally, after a year or so of relatively uninteresting cars, to have something so buildable and with RWD! That and it’s my 4th corolla GTS. it has a few silly things I don’t like, the garden trim front lip, some cheap driving lights and  ebay an exhaust tip, those will be gone soon enough.

There are a lot of upsides to this car, it’s an ’87 with the 7rib block, it’s a coupe, there are NO rust holes, it has the cool 2-tone grey paint, it came with a cusco lsd, and a set of 13×8 rota wheels with advan a032r race rubber (still street legal DOT tires) with tons of grip. the car also has the power steering and the EGR system removed…. both are things I would have done myself anyway.

I went with my friend Geoff to Vancouver island, who drove me to the ferry terminal and came with me as a walk on passenger to go get the car, I was on a tight time line… I caught the 5pm ferry to the island which arrived at 6:40pm and I needed to get on the 7pm ferry back. needless to say i was in a rush, we got off on the car platform because it’s always a faster way to get off, and we ran up to the passenger drop off area parking lot to meet the guy selling it. so i gave the car quick look over, paid the dude, signed the paper work, and hopped in the car to try and make it the 1-2kms back to the U-turn route so I could get to the toll booth and try to catch the boat… at this point with 60 seconds driving experience in this car I pushed the Advan track rubber about as far as I could on the on/off ramps provided, it was enough for Geoff to brace himself thoroughly….it was 6:54 when I pulled up to the toll booth and I basically drove straight onto the boat with maybe 3-4 cars behind by the time we set sail. I got the car home “safely” by 9pm.

There were/are a few down sides to this car aside from the lip, lights, and tip…..one was the aftermarket sunroof (installed nicely though) and  as I found once I started driving the car was that the guy was a smoker…a heavy one…crap

another thing I found when I went to insure it was that it had a V.I. on it, that’s a vehicle inspection, which means that a cop pulled him over, deemed the car unsafe for whatever reason. this sucks because I couldn’t get the car insured to drive at all till it was inspected by a mechanic…. I use to be one, and after looking over the car I expected they’d fine a few issues, these “issues” would have to be fixed before I could drive the car legally…. so i drove it to a shop to get inspected…… 1/2 way across town with 7 year old Sask plates. to my surprise the car passed!

back to the smoker thing…. I spent an entire day cleaning the car…. and this was only the interior and I haven’t shampooed anything. this was just the “dry” cleaning, vacuuming and taking garbage out and getting the carpet clean. the shampoo will come later. but the coolest part of the day was finding one of the oooold Dori-Kaze club stickers (which I have been a member since 2000-2001ish) under the rear seat, it was all dirty and wrinkled  but the sticker part was still good…

so the first mod was the DK sticker.

more to come

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