Old whips: The long journey to Cressylicious

Like a lotta folks my first car was a Mini. My step dad found me a tidy one and I set to work spending all the money I had and didn't have on buying shiny things for it. A lot of people will say a Mini is a great car to learn to drive in and a great car to learn to drive fast. I agree! I became obsessed with squeezing as much out of it as I could. With a cooper carb, ITG filter, custom elliptical stub stack, maniflow manifold fully heat wrapped, several different exhausts, xenon light conversion (made night runs more visible!) all cooper trim, tiny mono steering wheel, steering drop bracket, custom dash in body colour, 32-point adjustable GAZ shocks, superlites on Yokohama rubber, grooved discs, EBC pads.. haha.. yeah you get the picture.


Next step was a ST162 Celica. Owned by a pilot before me, it was frickin mint! It was fully poly-bushed, had koni shocks and springs, piggyback ecu, EBC discs and pads, samco hoses, braided brake lines and wider GT4 wheels. Faster but poo handling.


At this point I had discovered drifting and wanted some rear wheel drive in my life. I bought this ex-demo FC3S RX7 from a performance shop in Scotland. Really nice car to drive. It was running 200bhp N/A with the help of some random Australian ecu and a K&N filter. I added a TRUE twin exhaust REALLY FECKIN LOUD!! kyb AGX shocks, cobra springs and was running Silkoline oil in the engine, box and diff. A chick who'd owned it further down the line had spent a fortune on making the paint and bodywork pretty. Too pretty!


Next probably my favourite and most missed car. A stupidly mint KP62 Starlet with only 26000 miles on the clock that I got silly cheap. Kept it tidy and chopped the springs. Did some skids on wet nights. Then after a combination of moving in with my girlfriend at the time and starting uni.. I had bills to pay! Sold it for more than twice what I bought it for. It got me out of a tight spot but.. this one hurt.


So I lasted about five minutes with no car and bought as much as I could with as little as I could. A sharknose 525 e28. Felt like a ganster driving about in it. Scary on twisty stuff though, build like a bloody tank!


My brief stint with a KE70. Bought on a whim, I was far to excited to check it properly. It was hiding rusty nastyness..


Next I went bigger and pimper with this GX71 Chaser. Old, low, crushed velour seats. It was auto and had a million miles on it, tatty and faded all over but it had so much character. The 1G engine was as smooth as anything and made all the right noises. I have nice summer memories of cruising to the beach with a different girlfriend haha.. I cut my yahoo.jp teeth on this finding all the parts and wheels for it.


Moving house again forced the sale of the Chaser. I have to move again soon, such is uni life! But history will not repeat it's self! I'm determined to keep my Cressida and do it justice.