1975 Toyota Celicas: Reader Ride
Ashley & Bree Miniken met through a mutual admiration of Celicas and their two cars have become a strong part of their history together
1975 Toyota Celicas
My Celica story starts from before I can remember, when my parents would get around in Dad’s RA40 Celica, and in fact won the Dubbo show ’n’ shine award. Mum and Dad met because of his Celica, and, going full circle, it’s how I met my wife, Bree. We’ve only recently got married, but I met her by chance when she’d had her brown Celica for three years. She bought it at 18 and it was such a teenager’s car. She put black seat covers on it, it had oil leaks and she put a stereo in it. She was smart though and didn’t cut the dash to get a modern head unit in, instead she hid it away. The thing I loved most about her and her Celica though was that she drove it every day.
As for my car, you’d think red goes faster but Bree’s 1.6 has a set of dual 40 DCOE Webers but mine’s only got the single Aisin dual-throat carby on the 1.8 3T engine, so I have a hard time keeping up with her when we go for drives!
I always wanted the cool JDM-look with my car so the front quarter-mounted mirrors had to happen. They look authentic, but are resin with a stainless steel base. I’ve also got the longer bonnet flutes, real-deal yellow foglamps, and I’ve kept the correct wheel size at 14 inches. The problem with these cars is it’s almost impossible to find tyres with a seven-inch width and a 55-profile sidewall. As for the wheels themselves, I’ve picked that design because it looks so retro Japan. Very underground and old-school JDM. I’ve seen a car in Sydney with the centres painted gold, which helps make them look bigger but I actually think the plain alloy look suits mine better. It’s nice being a little less blingy.
It was a great day using both our cars for our wedding. They’ve become a strong part of our history together and hopefully we’ll be able to get Bree’s car a paint resto later this year. It had a bingle somewhere in its previous ownerships – although the primary ownership was 30 years by a church-going lady who sold it at 66,000kms. When they did the repair they used a flat dull brown colour whereas the original colour had a copper look to it in the sunlight.
I hope our kids will catch the Celica bug and enjoy these nimble little cars. They should – Bree’s car has a child seat attachment on the rear parcel shelf!
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