Choiceness! Ewan’s (of hayatonka.com) Celica recently made an appearance on one of the Minkara blogs I browse regularly. Looks like these photos were taken in the parking lot at the 2011 Nagoya Nostalgic Car Show. Very cool to see the Celica making the rounds and attracting a whole heap of attention over in Japland.

Definitely turning heads.

Especially with this setup “lurking” under (and over) the bonnet! (more…)

Continuing the theme of “collect all the ’80s audio gear!” – here is a freshly acquired Lonesome Carboy cassette deck and matching digital tuner being put thru the paces. Pleasantly surprised that the drive motor and belts haven’t completely fallen apart after 27 years.

I can’t find much information about the deck, except that it was apparently a factory upgrade option for the BF Familias and Lasers in Japan for a short time in 1985 before the CDX-P1 compact disc player was introduced, but the tuner is a standard Pioneer off-the-shelf item. This particular one, typically, is locked to Japanese AM/FM frequencies only.

There is a plan in motion for this setup; all shall be revealed in due course.

And it’s all over you, electric blue!

You may have noticed in my previous posts the mention of the auction I went to and subsequently ended up with a new vehicle that I didn’t plan on.

If all the talk around the auction was to be believed, the previous owner (or “hoarder” as they were referred to in the auction title (for good reason)) was a Japanese chap who had some manner of tie in with an Osaka automotive museum, he passed on and his young son wanted nothing to do with the cars and all manner of other lark that filled the shed.  The son attempted to sell the vehicles on his own but some of the wrong people managed to get ilk and subsequently stole several vehicles.  After this happened, the place was made a lot more secure and the charge of handling the task went to Christchurch Auctions.

When looking around the place, the tie in with some kind of auto museum makes sense, the collection varied wildly in make, model and condition.  The Prince Skyline Super (S21D-4) that I went up to see, in the initial auction pictures, seemed to be in OK nick.  That is however the illusion of photographs, as you can see with mine.

Can you handle how much this car cranks?

The crank handle is in the car because I wanted to make sure the engine actually spun to help dictate what price I was willing to pay.  It did spin too, quite freely.  Certainly a lot more freely than how bound up my one was. (read: locked solid) now the few things I needed from it.  Fender Mirrors, Grille Badge, Bonnet trim, Rear trim, they weren’t all in great condition but they were better than mine which don’t exist.   (more…)

B-B-B-Bird, bird, bird.  Bluebird’s the word.

So, I went up to Christchurch this weekend been to attend a “Hoarder’s Auction” an older Japanese gentleman had spent many years accumulating a large collection of both cars and completely random things that he picked up from other auction houses.  So when he passed, his son was so over-whelmed by the task of selling it, that he passed the job on to Christchurch Auctions.  (I’ll do another entry on the auction later)

I had initially planned on attending simply due to the presence in the line-up of another S21D-4 Prince Skyline Super, however after I inspected the S21, I soon discovered it was not worth a lot to me.  It was in worse shape than mine and only had a few parts that I could use.  The bidding soon got above a self-imposed limit and I followed along the auctions, watching many people grab many bargains.

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…none other than oldschool.co.nz!

it was indeed a very grand (albeit exhaustingly long) day. Chur to all who came along and supported/helped out with setup and on the day, yous knows who yous all are, and big ups to Richy, Chris, Leon, Duddley and all the others who made the stand such a success, winning Best New Club on the Block is hardly something to scoff at.

A special mention also goes to sheepers, whose 1UZ-powered Celica took out the Judges’ Choice Best V8 award.

Here is a short walkaround video of the club stand, which was modeled after a 1980s car yard. Some seriously sweet vehicles in our lineup, one can only hope next year’s effort will be just as awesome if not better!

And as a person who’s never paid much attention to underbonnet presentation on my cars (I’m more of a function over form type of guy) I have been somewhat converted to the idea of making the engine bay of squid tidy enough to be displayed if ever the need arises.