Bye bye Bitsy. Hello hardtop.

This was my second Corolla miracle, finding a replacement car for less than I knew I could sell Bitsy (see the first post, about my 1981 Corolla sedan) for. On January 30th 2009, I went out and picked up the first TE72 Corolla Hardtop I'd ever seen. It was a rust and dent free 1982 SR-5, which meant better "sport seats", a tach (invaluable with the automatic tranny), SR5 steelies, and that's about it The car had done 122k miles (made all the more gentle by being automatic), had some great service records, all in all the best use of $500 I'd ever found.

But the previous Greek owners had put some serious wear on the flimsy seats, and had recovered them using t-shirts in the back and some tropical seat covers up front. I've got some better photos of the front seat covers, hope to find those soon. Vacuumed the car up, removed the rear seats (the easiest solution to the heavy wear, plus saving weight and increasing space), installed my Mitsubishi wheels (RUINING THE HANDLING by putting awful stress on the 30 year old suspension bushings), a bike rack, a K&N air filter and my trusty MSD ignition system. Drove the car trouble free through August, needing no repairs, then sold it for $800, which went straight to buying red Corolla wagon #1! Post coming soon. Well maybe not soon, but next.


Trying not to look smug while keeping my bike out of the rain.





















Bitsy's beautiful backside on the left.
Telling Atika I'm ready to buy.

1/17/11 Corolla hiatus starts today...

Today was a great day, as I finally let someone come and take a look at my 1981 Corolla wagon. This is the wagon I bought for Atika in Summer 2009 for a $850 bucks, 70k miles and it match my red 81 wagon perfectly. Posted the car up on CL a few weeks ago, responded to the first person but then quickly got buried in dozens and dozens of very genuine and thoughtful emails.

Between family visits, helping with my 6 month old son Gustav on the weekends, and work, the car was slipping to the back burner pile of projects again. But luckily the first emailer continued to check in with me, asking when she could come by with cash. The car left my apartment with just over 99k original miles on her, so I expect the car to change this young lady's life.

As we test drove it around, started getting mad nostalgic and looked up some of my photos on forums to show her some of my other Corollas. So definitely time to post up some memories soon.