In my excursions on Craigslist searching for interesting and comical ads, sometimes I stumble across something which grabs hold of my check book and won’t let go no matter how much my sensible side pleads.  I recently had one of these experiences when I found two separate ads for 1977 Toyota Celica GT Liftbacks nearby. These RA29 Celicas were the last models of the first generation before the ugly 1978-1981 redesign.  From some angles they strongly resemble classical 60’s American muscle cars, most notably the Fastback Mustang.  Rather than being powered by small block V8s, however, the first generation Celicas bore various incarnations of the venerable 4 cylinder Toyota R engine, the 1977 model receiving the 20R.

1977 Celica GT Liftback Ad on Craigslist

One of the Celicas being advertised was in (barely) running condition, albeit with poor cosmetics, a leaky cooling system, and carburetion issues.  However, the seller was willing to part with it for almost nothing.  The second was in much better cosmetic shape, but did not run due to a half-completed swap of a 22R-TE motor (a somewhat rare turbocharged variant of Toyota’s fuel-injected 22R-E).  After some negotiating, I bought both of them for pretty reasonable prices.

Ryan securing the rustier of the two Celicas

A couple days later, me and a friend (Ryan) set out with a truck and a car dolly to pick up both cars and bring them to his house in Eden where we’ll be working on them.  The running Celica proved little trouble, as we simply drove it onto the dolly, disconnected the drive shaft, and rode off into the sunset.  The non-running one was rather more troublesome.  Ryan suggested we try using ratcheting tie-downs to haul the car up onto the dolly.  It seemed such a simple idea in theory, but the tie downs I had were light duty and the ratchet mechanisms certainly not designed for bearing the kind of load we tortured them with.  After about an hour (in the rain) of laboriously tightening ratchets a single tooth at a time, moving and swapping tie downs, ruefully evaluating the per-centimeter progress up the ramps, and muttering muffled expletives, the second Celica was ready to go and made the trip to Eden with no further issues.

Less rusty Celica stares down a deceptively long distance for ratcheting tie strap hauling technology to overcome

The current plan is to start stripping down the “better” of the two Celicas and assess how much rust damage it has, then start repairing the body.  Hopefully we’ll be able to restore it to a nice looking and running condition.  In the mean time, we hope to get the rustier RA29 running smoothly for future use as a parts source and possible LeMons race car.  Whatever pans out, we sure will be developing a lot of experience doing body work and rust repair, and hopefully without inspiring too much head-bashing frustration.  More photos of the Great Celica Retrieval of 2009 follow.