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

Chipman & Taylor: Porsche 928s

Here's the first installment of the cars I found at the Chipman & Taylor car show. Although this 928 may not represent the majority of cars at the show, that is far from my goal in covering this show. The Porsche 928 is one of my all time favorites, not only is it, or was it, a revolutionary car for its time but moreover the revolutionary car of the time.

The 928 is one of those cars that, like the Karmann Ghia or the first gen BMW M3 has timeless styling. It looked good back in the eighties, it looks great now and it will still look good fifteen years from now.

As I was shooting this car at the show I heard someone compliment the owner on his nice "new" Porsche, and I quote (hence the finely placed quotation marks). In response the owner said something along the lines of heh yeah 1981 like new alabaster...

I'm not sure if he really said alabaster but is sure sounded like it. Anyways that goes to show how modern these cars are, and how ahead of their time they were. They were the the fastest production car in 1987, able to reach speeds of 184 miles per hour. Very fast for 1987, and today for that matter. Something that Jeremy Clarkson appreciated very much in one instance.

These cars are something more than just another Porsche, they are the new age of Porsche we are seeing right now, the Panemera is a front engined rear wheel drive, albeit four door Porsche, just like the 928, Porsche knew what it was doing with its cars before it knew what it was going to do with its cars in the future, and this car is one of the best examples I have seen to date.

 The owner made sure to point out the original miles on the odometer, which I found astounding, considering this is a gt car made for extensive long trips. Also he pointed out the comedy of how Porsche fitted a speedometer that read only 85 miles per hour considering the top speed is double that. I believe this is the same cluster that was used in the 924, a much slower and more fitting car for this speedometer.

It's as if Porsche was trying to build something that resembled the slow 924 for the insurance companies and concerned mothers, but then stuff a 300hp V8 and an LSD for when the owner needed a rush or had an emergency much like Jeremy Clarkson in the above link.

These cars, were made to be an escape for the white collar, something they could take out looking like they were driving something tame and boring but really be driving a monster in a sheepskin, these cars changed the way people looked at the Porsche. It was so civilized and refined it changed the way people looked at there cars in general, from modes of transportation to something with a soul.

I personally find the first generation cars to be pretty ugly but the facelift in the mid/late eighties makes all the difference for me, but if I hadn't seen the face lifted version of the car I would still like this car very much. Here is another commercial for you to enjoy, these are some of the commercials that sold me on the car initially.

Joshua Sewell

Instagram: josh_sewell_photo