Did a couple of things to the ol' Celi..., Wanting your opinions. Options

[richee3]

Like the title says, I have done a couple of things to my car to update the exterior. Just simple things that cost next to nothing, to kinda give my car an updated look and make me feel like I've actually accomplished something, even though I've done absolutely nothing at all. Both are easily reversible, and one of them will be unless almost every person on 6gc says they love it. The odds of that happening are slim to nil though, so I'll probably change it back next week.

Anyway, the first little tweak I did (this is the one I will change back) is the spoiler. I have the 3 post spoiler, and I got bored the other day and took it off to see how my car would look. The wingless look kinda sucked something awful since I have absolutely no other mods like JDM tails to set it off. So while it was off, I got the idea of taking the middle post off and seeing what that looked like. So I currently have a 3 post spoiler modified to be a 2 post. Like I said, I'm changing it back, I just want to hear everyone's opinion.







The other thing I did isn't as easy to reverse, but I kinda like it. I've looked high and low for a set of rims that I actually like on our cars, but I never seem to find anything that seems perfect to me. I know I'll probably catch a lot of flak for this, but I kinda like the factory wheels. However, mine are just a little beat up... I guess the guy who owned the car before me can't tell where the curbs are. And the center caps have almost no paint left on them. I was gonna repaint the Toyota emblem in the middle of the center caps to be the same chrome that they came out of the factory with, but I decided I'd be original. I bought the chrome spray paint, but I also bought a can of Dupli-Color black spray paint, matched to my car. So I taped off the rest of the center caps and sanded the emblems down and repainted them black to match the car. Granted, up close, they look like s**t because the caps themselves are really faded and the black paint is new, so the contrast looks bad. Plus when you just look at the cap, you can tell that the black paint just doesn't belong there. But I think they look alright on the car. So in the pictures I took, I tried my best to hide the fading on the center caps and get at least some black paint on the car in the picture so you guys can see it all together. This can be reversed too, and I can still make them chrome just like they came. Let me know what you guys think.

















Oh yeah, I forgot to say this about the center caps. I messed the tape up on a couple of them and didn't realize it until after I had already painted them, so I have to take them off and redo them anyway, so if you guys would rather see them back with the original chrome, I can do that just as easy.

[richee3]

Ship me your rims, I'll put them on, and then I'll be able to give you an opinion.

Lol if I did that, I'd have to put my spare 14" steelies on the car with no hubcaps, but nice try!

I like what you've done with the wheels. It may not look super perfect up close, but if they look alright from a distance, and you're happy with them, then cool. Keep them for now, and if you change your mind, you can always remove the paint, paint the logo red, whatever.

As for the wing, I'm not diggin' the mod on that, myself. But it might be because I know how the 2-post looks, and it's a little different than your modded 3-to-2. I'd put that 3rd post back in; it anchors the design better IMO.

For other inexpensive and instant-gratification mods, you could tint or red-out your tail lights, make a mesh grill from Home Depot stuff, wash/wax clay bar your car, and clean your muffler and polish the tip (that sounds dirty in a really gross way)

I'm getting ready to try to find a way to repaint the rest of the caps later today so that there won't be new black paint in the middle of crappy faded paint. I'm going to go by AutoZone or somewhere and see if they have the right color paint, but I'm more worried about getting the old paint off. But yeah, from about 5 feet away, they look fine, so I think I will keep them black.

I just put the third post back in last night to keep anything from leaking, although seeing the design of the post, I don't know how it doesn't leak anyway, There's no weather insulation there, just a bolt in a hole. Oh well, I would love to get the GT4 spoiler anyway

Actually, I hadn't even thought about doing anything with the exhaust. That's a really good idea! As far as the tail lights go, I'd rather not touch them. I think anything you can do to them looks cheesy and you can easily tell it's a DIY job (no offense to the guys that have done it- I'm sure there are a hundred thousand things I've done that are a lot worse!). I've used that clay bar on my car... It's some good stuff! I bought the Turtle Wax ICE liquid clay bar. It was $15 well spent. I'm sure if it wasn't liquid that it would do even better. Anyway, to those of you that haven't done this to your cars yet, GO SPEND THE MONEY!!!! It's worth it!!!! It won't work miracles, but I can always notice a difference before and after.