Ate Six: Resurected From The Sherwood Forrest

 Many think the days of finding a cheap AE86 Toyota Corolla for less than an arm and a leg are long gone, and in popular opinion, and view, they very well are.. You aren't going to find a cheap 86 in any sort of reasonable condition without paying twice what any other car of a similar vintage would be worth, unless you know where to look and if not that, then how too look.. One of these I learned, and one I did...

I could have indeed found a car that got me from point a to point be for  much less than I bought this car for. Not the epitome of a fat budget, but I had $1500 to spend on a car that got me to work and back.

This need was mainly presented because I lost transportation in the beetle when I sucked a valve and no longer could drive it because a rod knock developed and I wanted to save the engine case which in fact is the stock 1300cc case along with the matching numbers pan and body, a potential candidate for a factory original restoration project, but that's a different story.

I indeed got it out of necessity, but also I got it out of a very keen interest in the classic nature of this car, or those very similar to it. not only is is one of the very first cars to make the sport of drifting famous, but it also has a rich road racing history and is featured as the main character in a TV show called Initial D.

Indeed you could say I was looking for an opportunity to get a hold of one of these cars in the future. It just so happened that this opportunity presented itself much sooner than I had expected and I can't say I am disappointed by any means.

I found this car, as I was looking for the above mentioned need of semi reliable transportation. One that I could work on if it broke and fix up in the future. I was also looking at possibly getting a Mazda MX-6 or a lame as a plain peanut butter sandwich, black four door Saturn sedan if this car didn't work out.

I had been eyeing the add for this car for a few days and hadn't pulled the trigger, but when I saw a price drop after countless nights of scrolling though Craigslist I shot the owner a text and went to meet him the week to have a look at it.

 After looking at the car and asking a few questions, doing a on the spot compression check(which I highly recommend). I handed over the cash and signed the title.

This is when my gut dropped, I saw the previous owner sold it to the feller I bought it from for a meager $200. Now I'm sure there was some work put into this car and time and maybe a little money before it was in my hands, but shucks I felt pretty taken. So I told myself he did the job of finding it for me and getting it to a reliable driving state in which I bought it for 1300 bucks. Talk about a profit.

Turns out he found it in the forest covered in pine needles and dead bugs while he was out to purchase a second gen Toyota mr-2. Sounds like someone didn't know what they had, and he took advantage of that, but hey I would have done the same thing if the opportunity presented itself. This is what I mean when I said I knew how to look and not where to look, I used Craigslist which has its good and bad, but in this case I could have known where to look and could have saved that $1300 to put into getting the car. Live and learn.

So a handshake later and a good one at that, I was off, on my way home in my new trueno coupe, with factory cruse control! I don't think I've had a better automotive day in my life than the day i purchased this car, aside from maybe formula drift Seattle... that was a great day also.
 

So what you are seeing now is the very car that I purchased exactly how I purchased it, the unfortunate way of spending a little more than I needed to although $1500 isn't bad for these cars, but after what I've done to it(post coming semi-soon-ish) I could easily turn it around and get double that. Good investment if nothing else.

one thing I did find interesting was doing my best to figure out this 86's story, where it came from, what kind of owners it had, how they treated it and so on. Unfortunately the owner before the guy I bought it from looked like a bit of a goofball, considering he broke the windshield with his fist, stomped on the headlight to make it go down when it was stuck and put an array of interesting stickers on it in various places.

I did some research and found out that Air Zenith is an air lift type company responsible for taking ordinary cars and dumping them on the ground. Their website here. Unfortunately I found that this whip was only equipped with the sticker and not the air bags that the company makes.. shame, but other stickers included board and surf shops and a university parking pass...

Forgive the orientation, but I was very pleased to find this window sticker. as you can see it says Arizona State University, Sun devils is their mascot, fun fact. After seeing this I concurred with the fact that this car spent a large majority of its time in a dryer climate than where I live making it almost completely rust free aside form some small spots from the forest stint.

But all in all I am very pleased with my purchase, with only 182xxx on the clock and only one tare in the seat, it wouldn't be a stretch to call this thing mint..

Of couse this car is far from perfect and needs some time and money dropped into it here and there to restore it to it's former glory or something above that hopefully. But it's really not bad considering some of the examples that have been turned into drift daily's, or neglected for longer than this.

The engine unfortunately is the eight valve carb'd 4AC. In the future I hope to swap this out for something with a pit more ponies. A 20 valve 4AG with itb's or maybe a 3sgte BEAMS sound really nice.. or if i have to a F20C out of a Honda s2000. Yes that is almost blasphemy in the purist Toyota world but it really is a well sorted engine.

Anyways, I do have a post coming about what I've done to the car to make it a bit more presentable and what I plan to do to it with a bit more concrete evidence and planning but for now, I'm just stoked to have one, a reliable mode of transportation, and two one of the cars on my bucket list of need to own.

So live in angst until I post what I've done to the car after owning it for a mere three months.

As always, your fellow car enthusiast and friend.

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo

Utah Lee's: STi from the dawn of creation.

Every once in a while I seem to stumble across some pretty neat cars. Sometimes this is at a track day sometimes this is out in the wild and sometimes I find a real jem at a carshow, dispite the often watered down exsamples found at the local shows near me.

In the case with this glorious Subaru Impreza WRX STi feast your eyes on something I have only seemed to witness for real, in real life, once. A car bred only for the purpose of having a blast at the track.

This Blue and carbon embellished beauty was found at a car show in Logan Utah, and although I attended it early this summer I very much felt the need to have it grace the pages of this site. I can't tell you how surprised I was to find this car at this car show. The original feels of the show as I drove up were a 1970's muscle car and earlier geezer show with Lynyrd Skynyrd music playing from the local band. I was very presently surprised to find this butte.

I have quite realistically never ever in my entire life seen a car with this much aftermarket carbon fiber on it in person. I was drooling for extended amounts of time and found myself tongue tied many times whilst chatting, err trying to muster up words for a conversation when questioning about this Pump. I mean this (i never asked) probably has 20,000 dollars worth of just exterior goodies, you couldn't find and angle on this car that didn't feature at least a little carbon fiber, again, I was in awe

I can't tell you what kind of wheels those are because I never got around to asking the owner because I was to busy absorbing all the stimulating information siting before me. This guy even had lexan windows in the back, lightweight, and shaved to maximize the mass amounts of air being surged through the flat four engine under the, again carbon fiber hood.

Now unfortunately I wasn't able to get much information about the engine because of all the staring, and also because unlike most motorheads this guy didn't seem to want to talk much about what his car could do, and had in it, and stuff, but it's to late to be reckoning on mistakes of the past. I can tell you that this has four cylinders, a turbo, a cold air intake with red mesh filter and an upgraded inter-cooler. I and fortunately I was able to squeeze out of the owner that the hybrid (Mr. Bean riding the yellow mini explains what a hybrid is) engine was pushing around 430 hp that's like four hundred and thirty horses all pushing this car at the same time but without seeing any of the horses or having to deal with their poop or anything, so that's pretty neat.

And all those horses were pushing a stripped and lightened chassis. This little feller looks like a kick in the pants to drive. Bolt in roll cage for added stiffness and more yummy gauges in the dash to keep track of the life blood of the car. Stock momo steering wheel? Nothing wrong with that.

Everywhere you look at this car there is an attention to detail. No proverbial "stone" has been left unturned, and that is something that has emptied many wallets and deprived sleep of this owner for many nights no doubt.

What is there to say to a man and a build like this that take what was once a conservative form of a grandmothers safety conscious AWD grocery getter, and turned it into a savage and unruly lightened stripped and strengthened monster made to scare the pants off any grandmothers who aim to go along for a ride. All I can say is thank you nameless owner for taking potential, and making it reality, for taking a blank canvas and turning it into a masterpiece. You the unnamed motohead, with a vision and a dream, an empty stomach but a smiling face... I salute you, for this build, the past, and the greater ones to come.

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo

Chipman & Taylor: Kuckle Skraper's Rat Rod

Air Pumps is a site dedicated to documenting and showcasing the best and most attention grabbing forcers of Air that I or any future editors on this site cross paths with. Any particular Air Pump need only have a very limited set of criteria to be showcased on this site. They need to, in some way pump air, and do it in a way that grabs attention, and shows some sort of dedication, and handiwork that went in to its conception. Whether that be in a factory, in a garage, or in some cases, a backyard.

 This Pump, with some argumentation could easily be of the latter conception location, but with no less hard work and dedication than other Pumps documented on this site.

 The thing I loved most about this Rat Rod is the contrast that is seen throughout. This is shown quite well in the patina red bodywork, and the stainless louvered trunk. This particular piece is completely unnecessary, unless you have a barbecue in the back and need vent the smoke from the tasty roasting steaks. In this case there was no barbecue and therefore no need for the louvers, but, they are very, very cool. It adds so much more interest to the rear section of the car. I have always loved louvers and took a different mindset to them after seeing the 2015 Speedhunters Scion Tuner Challenge Scion frs, and I have to say adding them on this rod is only for the better.

 The contrast continues to every corner of the car, the pin-striping, on a weathered and battered headlight housing. It just shows the level of artistic appeal this car has, and I don't think you can walk by this car without appreciating that at least a little bit.

 This Rod and the few others that were with it were put together by a group of Rat Rodders called Knuckle Scrapers based out of Palouse Washington. They are a pretty low key group, that make some pretty special rigs. I know one of the members who also owns a company that specializes in hot rod header flanges pretty close to where I live, I'm thinking about contacting him if I ever decide to do anything with an exhaust manifold on any of my cars. Here's his neat website. Website

 Anyways, back to the Rod, the thing I love about these types of builds is how just about anything goes, as long as it reflects the creativity of the builder and stays true to "never quite finished on a low budget" unwritten build guidelines for Rat Rodders.

Another thing I loved about this car was the very subtle throwback to the fighter plane of a similar vintage as the chassis. This is easily seen here and even in the jackets the crew wears, to the accents on the engine, the interior accents, again more pin striping, stylistic contrast just oozes from this build.

 It continues from the interior to the engine, the quartet of bell stacks with independent throttle bodies on the Offenhauser engine. Both the stacks and the engine were something I had never seen before and loved researching. Turns out this is an American company with a rich vintage racing history, real neat stuff.

This type of thing is what brings the level of the build up to more than just a creative level but a historic and nostalgic one. One of the most interesting items about these cars is how they interest a wide range of people, the contrast in the types of people that take interest in these cars is almost as interesting as the cars themselves. From a late teens blond hooligan with a camera, to an older looking gentleman in a red shirt. Fascinating these connections..

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo