Bill Brown's 1964 Toyota 700 - Reader Ride
Bill Brown's suitcase resto '64 Toyota 700 rises from the flames
Bill Brown's 1964 Toyota 700
I bought it in Tasmania in 2008 and trailered it on the ferry and back to Brisbane. It was partly dismantled already so I totally stripped it down, garnet blasted it back to bare metal and started MIG welding to repair all the rust which wasn’t too bad, bottoms of the doors, guards and floor were the main problem areas.
The engine was shot and it had been converted to a manual so I changed it back to the original two-speed Toyoglide automatic. It has no park function and you have to start off in low and then slip it into drive when you get moving along. I was then posted overseas to the Philippines for a few years and managed to pick up another engine there as they used it in one of those little three wheel trucks.
I had a local ‘expert’ rebuild it and when I went to collect I wanted to see it running, so he set it up and stuffed some rags in the exhaust to quiet it down which wasn’t a great idea because the engine caught fire! We came back to Australia and I put the engine back in the car and it lasted for about 15 minutes. He’d put the wrong size shells in it and ruined the crankshaft. I had it rebuilt properly by a machine shop in Brisbane and it now runs perfectly.
I also had the upholstery and chrome done in the Philippines, I took them there in my baggage so I was a bit overweight at the check-in. The bumpers were a mess, twisted and rusty but they fixed and chromed them for just $90! This is the original colour, we had one in Papua New Guinea from 1970-80 in the same colour, they’re a great little car.
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