My Introduction and My Car PROGRESS!!, Updated july 12 Options

[joehernandez]

Ok. guys.
My name is Jose Hernandes AKA Joe.
I Used to live in Mexico 6 years ago. I still remember the day that i first saw a Celica. It was outside walmart while i was waiting for my family on the car. A Nice car parked newt to my dads car, i was sleeping and the sound woke me up but i didnt paid much attention. Curiosity made me go outside. I saw it! It was a Black Celica with an awesome bodykit (gt-four nowadays). Since that day i wanted one of those.
Four years later we moved to Arizona. On December 2005 i worked at a cooler (a place where they make salads). It was a pretty hard job washing machines under extremely low temperatures. Sometimes i wanted to quit but i needed money to get the car i wanted, which was a celica. I had to be at work at 10 pm, so i got off at 7 or 9 am. It was a night shift.

Every day when i got home in the mornings, i used to go check everyday the car auctions looking for a celica. I had bad luck for 5 months. so i gave up . But the day of my birhtday which is April 3rd my friend came home.
We were checking cars and he said "Let go check out the auctions" but i said no, i have already check them three hours ago.
but he insisted so hard that i agreeded.
I went to the website and for my surprise the auctions had already been updated!
There it was, it was a silver 1996 Celica GT. It was salvage but the dents were not really that extreme to make it a salvage car. But It had to be my car! so instantly i went to the guy that has the license to buy auction cars! And i got it.

I bought the car for $2500, it had 104 000 miles and leather interior!

Here are some pics of the car when it was on the auction yard.

On the front you can notice a crack on the front bumper and the high beam destroyed

Here is the side view of the car, its a big dent but nothing hard to fix

Here is the back view of the car, lots of ugly sticker and the cap painted black

I got the car one week after my birthday. It sat on the garage probably two months. I had to wait for the title of the vehicle in order to pass inspection tests. The repair cost me about 400 dollars, they were really good a fixing stuff but painting sucked! I also spent lot of time looking on yards for the high beam! without luck i ordered it from 1sttoyotaparts.com. Here is a pic of the car fixed, i had more but could not find them.

On 2007 i met David (coldbluesteel). He had a selling thread where he had almost everything for a gt four conversion,
no one seemed to jump on his sale. After time of discussing i bought lots of parts from him he gave me the chance because i didnt had all the money so i saved for probably 5 months. I work at a shoe store making 7 and hour so you can imagine it was pretty hard to get all the money for the conversion . I went to pick up the parts at Las Vegas Baby!!!!!!!!
It was a really cool trip! i have lots of pics from that day, there is one of me and David sealing our deal! lol that was pretty funny. Anyways thanks a lot David!

I will leave this space for the pics at las vegas while picking up the parts so check back soon!!!!

Now the car was ready for the transformation! Thanks to Colin (gottagoturbo) he provided me with the rest of the parts needed for the conversion. So thank alot Colin, i lost contact with him after buying him lots of parts. I think he doesnt checks his emails anymore.
Well i had a rough time deciding the paint color. At first i wanted to be silver, the same color my car was.
But then i saw this lexus with a black blue color, and i felt in love with the color, so i went with Black Sapphire Pearl.
Here is a pic of how the color looks really close, i have tried taking pictures to show you the beauty of this color but it is really hard to capture with photos, you have to see it in person to appreciate the nice blue metallic it shines.

I spent $1500 on the shop. They had the car for almost one month, i received the car two weeks ago,
when i first saw my car i was so amazed! it was a pretty weird feeling, i could not believe that i was looking at my car! It cannot be my car!! but after time of looking at it, woow , so impressed. I got it and it is cool to see people faces of how fascinated they are with my car.
The car is not ready though. there is still more work to be done with the front lip. but that will come later.
for now check this pictures, i will post some more high def later.

THIS IS HOW MY CAR LOOKS NOW

Here are some pics i took yesterday while outside work, enjoy

My Favorite Picture

As You can see, i fell in love with the hood

Here You can see How i need some rims in a hurry

MORE DETAILS COMING SOON

This post has been edited by joehernandez: Jul 12, 2010 - 12:33 PM

[joehernandez]

looks good man
i'm glad my lip is on there
do you still have the silver bumper though? if so i may be interested. mines all dinged up.
LMK
get some new wheels on that bad boy

HEhe thanks goferris, well actually your lip is still on the garage, i might sell it but im thinking to keep it as a replacement if something happens to the the one i have right now,
I have not even installed the suspension technique springs that coldbluesteel gave to me and the car its almost everytime i get out of the house.
The front bumper is still on the shop. but the paint is already coming off, i will take pictures of it and showed them to you OK

that is awesome color. GT4 in mexico? wow. I never realized they sent them over there must have been imported.

now start saving for that engine.....

Thanks NJCCMD, yeah mi next mod is the engine, right now i will have two jobs, will be getting at least 2000 a month, so hope by the end of this year the car will have the engine. 3SGTE by the way.
Oh and also, i live in Arizona but i used to live in mexico, 6 years of learning english jejeje

damn, that looks nice. i've seen the lexus black sapphire pearl in person so i bet your car looks 10x better than those pics. everything looks awesome. where'd you get those trd skirts? and what did you do with your stock ones... can i have them?

Thanks! so you agree that the color looks pretty sick in person huh
as far as i know, the skirts i have on the car are not the trd ones, they are 404 skirts, coldbluesteel didnt really told me if they were the TRD ones.
the stock ones i had, are on the garage taking up space,
i will post a selling thread on the following weeks, theres lots of leftovers from the conversion. so check back soon.

+1 for the engine

BUT get some projectors, doesn't suit it with just high beams

looks SLEEEEEEK as

Thanks man, engine is the next big mod, 3SGTE, but i still have to find more info about it,
projectors still undecided because they are pretty expensive for a pair. but will keep in mind.

Having wanted a 6th Gen Celica since they were new, and FINALLY getting mine last July, this is a story I completely relate to! The car looks beautiful. You're off to an awesome start. I have a lot of respect for you and for how hard and diligently you worked to get what you wanted. It's a great show of character.

Thanks a lot. Like i always say, patience will take you everywhere, 7 months of looking for parts, asking people, reading info about the parts, and finally im all happy with the results. Thanks a lot for what you said, that is what helps me keep going with my projects.

same story here too. searched forever in the salvage auctions for a celica and finally found one after about a year of searching, so i bought it. fixed it. drove it for a couple of years before i found a gt-four for parts, so i did the conversion thereafter. car is in the shop now for some fresh paint and will be coming home any day now for a few treats .

the car looks great btw, just need a set of projectors and possibly some wheels to complete the look. i hope you got that gt-four latch thing all sorted out...

wheel are coming probably in less than a month, still checking the options.
But i thought you already had the car painted red less than 2 years ago, are you changing the paint again?
projectors still undecided, if i can find them for a low price i will get them,.
oh yeah thanks for the info about the latch, it makes a lot of noise when i open the hood, so i will probably just need to make it 1 cm longer. but thanks a lot.

wow, your car looks siiiick, from how stock it looked to what it is today, niiice job, i've been waiting for you to start up a thread on your progress, the paint looks awesome

thanks for the comments. check back soon for more info and more pics. you should also post a thread of your progress!

[stevest202]

you have certainly turned that car around well done and agree love the colour