1972 Toyota Celica GT   

The other day I received a call from my good friend Joji regarding the idea of
setting up an atypical new web site .The topic would be yours truly. I
figured, sure and maybe it would be a great opportunity to share my story on how I became so infatuated with all these old Toyotas.  People often wonder why I have 4 old Toyotas in my driveway. I'm what you would refer to as a Toyota freak, not any different than you folks actually reading this web site.

It all started out on a military base in Japan. Growing up in this environment, there were so many old school Toyotas around that it was just the norm. You have to understand that my first car was a Mitsubishi Celeste (think Plymouth Arrow). I thought that was different. Of course my fascination then was just racing them.  There was a place where all the local Japanese would go to street drag race, and being the curious devil that I am, I decided to take my car down there, and scope out the scene.  It was so cool to hang out all night and just shoot the sh*t, and spectate. Then one day, something clicked inside my head when I saw a Celica LB 1600GT Banana Tail race down the strip. There is nothing like the sound of dual Solex's running full tilt. From that moment on, I was hooked.

Then I had to move to Texas to go to College. I got a hold of my big brother's TE-51 Corolla sport coupe "Hand me down", which was pretty run down.  I really didn't enjoy this car much but it served its transportation purpose. But then I started to think, Leaf springs on 1979 sport coupe?! Immediately started looking for a Celica and found a 74GT Coupe. I actually wanted an LB but all LB's in the US had ugly big heavy odd looking bumpers that I just couldn't get past.  When I opened the hood of the GT, I didn't see the Yamaha head so I was scratching my own head thinking what the hell is going on? You see, everywhere else in the world, GT means GT for real. The US GT version of the cars can be called "Imitations" and never came with the DOHC engines.  I wanted to hear the sound of dual Solex carburetors so I got a hold of an 18RG and threw it in. That was my first engine transplant. I can do this in a few hours now... with my eyes closed!

Of course, you can never leave anything stock when you have the bug, so out
went the engine and in went the new 2.2 liter "Tuned 18RG". That engine lasted a few months until it went south. I continued to build several NA 18RG engines with my 74 Celica until that Volvo turned left in front of me. I always wanted to get a hold of a 72 and I only saw one in Texas so I flew to California and picked up a 72 from Joji and drove it home. But by this time, I had the itch of the sound of a blow off valve so I decided to make my 72 a turbocharged 18RG. This turbocharged Celica ran very well at the street drags in Texas, surprising many RX-7's, Supra's, and V-8's.  I never took it on the track, but I believe it was running around the low 13's on a stock 18RG with a bolt on Turbo. By this time the Celica had all the goodies I was
able to find like Sway bars, shocks, pillow-ball upper strut mount, strut tower bar, fender mirrors, etc. Just a note: stock 18RG's with a properly setup turbo will hold about 14psi of boost before you run into problems. I am experienced!

Now, I still have the Celica and it is under a car cover waiting to be revived with a newly found turbo engine with flared fenders. This is a long-term project that will take another few pages to write about. I have been pre occupied with my 69 Corona 2dr and 71 MK2 2dr.  I also just picked up a 69 Crown and need to get that running so I will be pretty busy for awhile. Maybe next year it will be revived

A time to reflect is a time to sit back and really think about what went on back then Now I realize that if I had to reflect about many of the things in the past, I wouldn't be able to finish writing about it in one day. I can continue writing about so many other cars. There is just too much that I have done. Well, enough reflecting for now. I think one of them old Toyotas are calling me out in the garage. I need to go re-design and modify the factory design defect 18RG oil pump suction. - R.N.

Tiny Panganiban