Kaiser's 1996 Survivor Celica Options

[Kaiser]

This is Lucy. She is a 1996 Celica ST Hatchback, cutest one in town.
Bought February 2nd, 2013 for $2800 with 103,XXX miles. My first car.

As of 01/01/15:






When I bought her:










Modifications:

Underhood:
-Cone filter
-NGK plugs

Wheels/Suspension:
-Stock suspension
-Stock wheels powder coated Alert Red

Interior:
-Painted interior trim
-Removed rear seats

Electronics:
-Pioneer HU
-BOSS amp + 13" Subwoofer

Exhaust:
-Stock exhaust piping
-Muffler deleted, welded a straight Impala SS Flowmaster tail pipe on the back




***I haven't been around for a year, a lot has happened. The Celica was wrecked and fixed and now I'll probably be losing it anyway after I graduate. But I miss the forum and I'll get another Celica someday, so I came back to finish Lucy's little story.***

This post has been edited by Kaiser: Jan 3, 2015 - 2:27 PM

[Kaiser]

A '98 Suzuki JLX slammed into my passenger side at about 40mph without trying to swerve or stop while I was crossing an intersection. My car fishtailed across the intersection and came about a foot away from a building before stopping. Details of what happened immediately after aside, my whole rear quarter panel was crushed in further than the wheel. I was, however, able to drive my car away without issue (and thus, non-reportable "minor"accident). No damage to the Suzuki, literally. There was a huge streak of red paint across her bumper, and when I realized that it was not from my car I understood what kind of person I was dealing with. We beat the dent out from the inside and I sanded it down, a friend was doing coats of bondo every now and then but he doesn't finish what he starts so I finished it myself so we could paint it. I didn't want to show up at school with what my friends were calling "the cow car" because of the massive bondo/primer patch on the side.






My father left the stupid blue towel over the back end and I didn't notice it when painting, so the car has a weird little primer/black overspray/towel fuzz streak. It's not really that noticeable. The quarter panel could have come out better but the car was a real wreck originally. After the accident I replaced my flex pipe and discovered that the exhaust had snapped at the back of the car. Because it was hanging, we took the muffler off for a while until we could get some new piping in there. I liked the sound without the restrictive muffler, and ended up tossing the stock muffler when I found a Flowmaster Impala SS tail pipe laying on the ground in the junkyard. Sounds a lot nicer than anybody expected.

I don't remember why anymore, but in October of '14 I removed the whole rear bench and seatbelts from the car. For a temporary carpet extension over the exposed metal, I took the black carpeted boards off of the back of the seats and laid them down over it. I wanted to open up the back of the car I think, and I don't like having passengers anyway so the back seats were useless. Hella more room for car parts, if nothing else.

And of course, over time I ended up painting the interior, the gas door, and the wiper arms to match the wheels and continue the black and red theme. I was going to get seat covers and a black carpet and yadda yadda yadda, but now I'm not sure. I think I'm going to lose this Celica this year, and after the accident that would have honestly totaled the car out, I'd rather start over someday with a cleaner car. Or at least one that isn't covered in dents. Really, I'm looking to restore a first generation Celica and base the colors of off this one.

Anyway, that's how the Celica and I spent our year. It's been wild, and now we're just about to hit 115,000 miles on the clock.