From the West coast division of the Corvair shortening department comes this 1963 convertible dune buggy variant of the American air-cooled rear engine sports car. The car originally rolled off the assembly line as a factory turbocharged Spyder in 1963. An accident that buckled and creased both doors landed what was left the Spyder languishing engineless behind a gas station … [Read more...]
1969 Honda Electric Rear Driver
Garage talk concerning engine swaps or drivetrain transplants is plentiful. Thousands of instant message windows, forum posts, and Facebook updates are populated at any given second with declarations of Hayabusa powered mid-engine rear-drive Ford Festivas (or similar) with induction systems managed by MegaSquirt. And so on. Some folks actually go so far as to get the pieces. … [Read more...]
Tool of the Week: Snow and Ice Scraper
As much of the world plunges into the sort of deep freeze that may be the work of a clandestine global super villian, the trusty snow and ice scraper seems the perfect mid-winter Ernst Starvo Blofeld edition of Tool of the Week. Growing up in New England meant carrying one or more of these handy tools around for nearly six months out of the year, along with a childhood … [Read more...]
Economy Seat Covers
The dry climate and salt free roads of California are kind to older cars like the Starlet. The same warm California sun has detrimental effects on vinyl interiors. Throw in twenty plus years of sitting and sunbathing, and it's a good bet that even the rich Corinthian leather in those 1981 Cordoba seats has seen better days. Drivers seats take the biggest beating. While the foam … [Read more...]
Corollla Rescued from Crusher
Proving wrong the previously held belief that a car is on a certain path to the jaws of the crusher once out on the California junkyard ground is this 1983 Toyota Corolla. We have lost count of how many near mint condition cars, trucks, and vans seen at the self-service junkyards of California that left us scratching heads as to why they were junked in the first place. This … [Read more...]