If you’re going to build a V8-powered streeter/racer like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Celica, it makes sense to keep the donated engine in the family, right? Let’s see if this 1UZ-FE-powered toy’s price makes sense too.
“And miles to go before I sleep” is the close of Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and it falls within the structure and rhyming convention of the verse. There is second issuance of the phrase in the final stanza however, which lays bare the basic conflict established in the poem—the easy lure of dalliance competing against the responsibilities of a desired but more importunate life—and cleverly sets the reader toward their own inner reflection.
Yesterday’s 2000 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS had a lot of miles on it, and perhaps far fewer left before it sleeps. Overcoming obscurity and desirability to doom it to a 78% Crack Pipe loss, those miles took their toll. The big issue with that crazy odo reading was not so much the actual distance but the wear and tear that the mechanicals have endured as they covered it.
Of course, you could always swap all that out…
That’s just what’s been done to this 1983 Toyota Celica coupe. At least as far as the engine goes. It’s claimed to have been set up for racing, although there’s no apparent roll cage inside. The addition of a 1UZ-FE out of a ’93 Lexus makes it a little bit more of a rocker, but is still claimed to be legal on the street, even to the point of passing California’s stringent smog test.
I don’t know why that would be important on a car being sold in Old Milwaukee, but maybe its new owner will want to take a road trip. The ad says that the engine swap is tidy but the seller doesn’t do us the honor of giving us even one shot of the install to back that up.
The tranny was originally a manual, but is now an automatic. If that feels too much like giving up then know that the original five-speed does come with the car, and the ad says that custom bell housings to mate eight to five can be found.
Other mods include a relocated battery (in da’ butt) and a “fully adjustable front suspension” that also apparently doesn’t deserve pictures. In fact, the pics that are in the ad are all kinds of weird. The car is on a lift in somebody’s garage—hey, nice Crown Victoria!—and while that gives access to an under car shot, it seems to make every other one all the more difficult. Oh well.
The body is said to be in good shape while the interior is described as “not nasty or smelly, just a race car.” Which I guess is about as encouraging a testimony as you could want.
The car is apparently still streetable, wearing all its necessary lights, mirrors and license plates, but the ad claims it can also do duty as an SCCA cone darter. That two-for-one deal, along with the family affair V8 shoved under the hood makes contemplating the car’s $6,500 price tag a solemn duty.
What’s your take on this V8 Celica and that $6,500 price? Does that seem like a fair deal for a fun car? Or, is this Toyota just too big a toy for that kind of cash?
You decide!
Milwaukee Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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