I've wanted to build an old school Japanese car for a lot of years now, with wants including an FJ60 wagon and the RA24 Celica GT I recently acquired. Mine is from Arizona, which I bought from a racing buddy who lives down there. Life got too busy for him to tackle another build and he knew I wanted his Celica, so he sold it to me for a song. I just had it shipped to my home here in the Hamilton, Ontario area, so it's still got lots of Arizona sand in it. I'll give it a good wash during teardown.
My grandma owned this very model of Celica when I was 5 or 6 years old, so there's some nostalgia happening here, but mostly I just love the body style of the RA24 and look forward to restomodding it for street use and track use. I had the previous owner remove the original engine before shipping the car to me since it was seized, plus I always intended to do an engine swap anyway.
I'm considering a Beams 3S-GE Black Top engine with the 6-speed trans, or perhaps a 1JZ VVTI with R154 trans.
Looking forward to learning more about these beautiful old Celicas from you all. I've already learned a lot by searching this forum and have found great options for a custom front crossmember from Cary (1jzra21) for an engine swap and Panic Wire for a custom harness.
Cheers,
Dave from Speed Academy