Vintage Toyota Corona's Forum - 

I stumbled across this car for sale locally, after having owned a few SUPER rusty Toyota pickups, and knew it was something of interest. I'm a big fan of the R series engines, and some minor research told me that Coronas share nearly the same drivetrain as my trucks, so I jumped on this car.

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I bought it from a Russian chemical engineer(for real!), who bought the car in Texas in 1996 when he moved to the 'states. He drove the car to Mexico several times, and daily'd it until around 2000, when he decided a newer, nicer car was in order. He moved many times before finally settling in Madison, at which point he realized he wouldn't have the time to fix the car up until he was retired, and the taxes to ship the car to Russia were huge(again, all true). He put it up for sale at a local repair shop for $800, where I drove by it for several weeks before realizing what it was. After hearing the owner's story, I handed him cash and it was mine!

First, there is NO RUST. I live in Wisconsin, where new cars a rusty as soon as they leave the lot, so this car is a rare find up here. It was completely original when I picked it up, minus a few botched fixes by the previous owner.

So far, I've done some minor things to the car.

-Swapped out the tired, poorly running 20r (200k-plus miles) for a 22r from an '87 pickup
-Installed a Weber 32/36
-Changed ICM to the GM setup (detailed on off-road forums, I can find a link if it'll help anyone out)
-Found some Celica GT rims in a junkyard and got new tires

Next on my list is to install a GM 110 amp alternator with a conversion bracket I sourced from lowrangeoffroad.com, and the car will be ready to hit the road!

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It seems these are the only two pictures I have of the car at all, I'll need to work on that. Thanks for looking, and I'm glad to answer any questions about what I've done so far!