shining star

The Legacy was gone and i was in need of a car. The hunt was on. unsure of what i wanted at first it soon became clear i wanted something made before i was thought up. A tidy little starlet popped on trade me. To be specific a two door 1984 kp61. featuring an 4k and k40 four speed box. i had to look, so within two days i had viewed and purchased the car. Then came the 6 months of absolute awesomeness filled with multiple rollback skids rain drifting and bitch pulling. a common feature of nearly all my cars. A trip over to the drags was to be the day it finally gave up. While being followed over the Rimutaka hill coming home from a great day of racing i could hear the uneven pulse of a chicken cooker coming from the rear. IT WAS ON! down shift and foot floored the revs were rising, chopping through the gears i was pulling away! the mighty 4k was beating a 12a brotang! then it all turned to shit... a knock soon became apparent. a very loud knock. a run bearing as the diagnosis.

Not one to let things get me down the car went into the garage and the parts hunt was on. A smallport 4age was purchased as with a t50 22 spline ae86 gearbox, driveshaft and diff as well as a whooooole lot of other go fast bits. The car was then taken into Peter Zivkovic's workshop where it was stripped and a dummy motor and box fitted. Unfortunately my inability to perform precision engineering work i was left waiting for people to have some free time. The car sat. waiting. Ready for the roll cage to be fitted. and then... a certain car was offered to me that i couldn't refuse. the Corolla. so the Starlet was moved and the ae85 pushed in its place. The starlet put up for sale and everything purchased for the car to be bolted up to the ae85.

It will be a sad day to see it go. The car that got me motivated to race. The fun i had researching and dreaming of the day i would get behind the wheel and drive it. Unfortunately i wont drive it but upgrading and not loosing a lot more money on the car is a positive.

Throughout the ownership of the car i made a very big mistake which resulted in the ownership of the next car in the lineup...
Find out more on that one next up.

James.