Certainly the worst money I ever spent. I blame it on karma. You can only buy-sell-buy-sell-buy-sell AE86 for so long before the Showa Gods lose patience with you. In this case they acted on me through a goofball named Whalen. I bought the car for $1000, without giving it a fine look. I simply trusted the guy who sold it to me. I should have been suspicious when he insisted on delivering it to me. It was supposed to be a project, but I thought that would mean LSD’s and carbs, cams, and other basic stuff. I never thought it would mean constructing a whole new body with my two hands.
I saved every bolt and nut, piece of glass and salvageable body panel off of it before throwing the car in the garbage. This is what death looks like, although for a couple months I was in grave denial.
And if you don’t know Japanese, “sabi” means rust. It basically took me out of the kyusha game. Canada kills cars.
Specifications of the Machine
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FOOTWORK
POWER UP
DRIVETRAIN
INTERIOR
EXTERIOR
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The current plan might actually be to ressurect my partially parted and very much rust infected AE86. Cost effective? Wise? Not entirely...
The result will more than likely be a vehicle that resembles AE86 only in appearance. Engine and tranny are already gone. Fenders and headlights already gone... rear floor pan already gone. Even steering rack and column are already gone.
Why replace these things with stock or even stock ish items when weird oddball stuff is just as desirable and maybe even cheaper.
The real challenge is time and money. For the first time ever, I will be working within a very limited budget, and there is actually a hard fast deadline to finish things up (at least evolution 1). I've said before that I operate a real car life on an RC car budget... and that's not an exaggeration. Total budget of like $1500 from this point forward?? That might be a stretch of many things.
The purpose of said project will remain private. We might just be up to no good... and we might be on our way to riches. Call it our plans for the ultimate street AE86... except of course that there will be nothing ultimate about it because let's face it... $1500 buys shit.
The welder is going to get well used. Many visits will be made to Metal Supply House, and PNP and... probably YOUR garage under cover of night [...]
Good.
Remember that coupe I had…It started off life as a rust bucket. It was just as bad as yours.
A welder, time and Bondo can do anything.