In August 2016 I was browsing Craigslist looking for a project... for someone else. I had missed out on purchasing a 2006 Porsche Boxster that had front end damage from a deer because the owner decided they didn't want to sell it anymore, and I was sort of bummed out. However, instead of finding something for someone else, I found an ad for a pair of 2nd gen Celicas for $1000. They were rough, but I decided it was worth a look, if nothing else for something to do. It was about a 2 hour drive to where they were, so we hopped into the daily and headed that way through some country roads The plan was that if neither of the cars had a solid body and were rusty that it would be a big skip. Pulling up to the house we found a garage door open with a pair of old Toyotas sitting inside, Corollas if I remember right. He was a big Toyota enthusiast. The Celicas were in the back yard sitting under some trees. They were filthy, one had come from a barn even. As it turns out, though, one of the bodies had minimal rust. It was actually impressively clean for a 1978 Toyota economy car. The rundown was that the clean body car supposedly had a bad headgasket and the rouger car ran before it was parked by the previous owner and had some parts stripped off of it. Between the two there should be enough to build one good car, probably. We chatted a bit, and he offered both cars delivered to my house for the asking price. I thought about it for the night, and the next day we got the deal started and I waited with anticipation for the delivery. A couple days later the 1978 with the clean body rolled up on a tow dolly. A friend was over, and my neighbor who was also a Toyota enthusiast all helped shove the car into the driveway and we started checking it out. It was an automatic.. but the other car was a 5 speed. Inspecting what was rough and what wasn't.. door panels weren't great It would be crazy to expect an old neglected car to have no rust.. but nothing looked scary. This was rust.. instead of rot. Overall it's a solid car The cleaning was going to need to be thorough. Next up.. it's time to start tearing it all apart.