Spottedlaurel

A previous spot of mine: I got in touch with the owner and he had a couple of bits off me. Ad says sold, wonder if it'll remain on the road or get exported/broken?

Another 1:24 scale completion. Honday Today by Tamiya, started off like this complete with the motor installed*: It sat in a tub of brake fluid for a few weeks to get rid of the enamel paint. Fortunately all of the limited parts were present in the box, so once it was back to bare plastic it was just like starting a new kit. And with other small car builds: I think it should have a yellow plate as a kei car, but the first ones I tried broke up and I only have a limited number of them. * @flat4alfa, I have a bit of a s

I always found the bottom variant of wheel to be much less attractive. What's happened to the roof on the orange one? Looks like the back end of a banger that's been pulled out.

LS back in use again: Misfire was due to failed coil pack, that was sorted without any issue. They'd speculatively ordered one in on the basis of my description so it was quickly sorted. Cat's got welded-up to cure the noisy exhaust. While it was up on the lift they noticed a coolat leak, turned out to be a small hose with a nick in it and that was easily sorted. Treated it to a jet wash. Squint and it looks OK, couldn't resist the opportunity to get a photo under the blossom tree at the Japanese restaurant on a birthday takeaway meal collection. Effectively this car was last y

Similar to what I had as my first car back in 1988 (except mine had the whiney OHV A12 engine, not the later OHC like this one). This example has the US-style grille and headlight surrounds - I wonder if a batch came in like that, as I'm sure I saw another many years ago.

Great to see this, very unexpected! I'll have a dig around in the shed and see what manuals, servica data, specs etc I can find. From memory we only ever got that H20 petrol here, I should be able to find out what diesel option(s) they had elsewhere. Subsequent F22 model certainly had both. This one was at Medlers in the late '90s, even then they were a rare sight. Looks like I must have a JDM brochure: Smaller diameter twin rear wheels on the bottom one. Makes sense that they had that option, the loadbay on the standard model always seemed a bit high to me.

One day I'll find the article on a converted van that had the lower roof from a saloon/estate, that looked good. Here's a nice standard-looking Mk1 back in 2009: I'm not going to copy and paste someone else's photo, but a quick Google will show what it looks like now.......

Update......... Haven't yet got the Laurel tax dealt with, hopefully tomorrow, but I dropped the LS400 into the garage yesterday and I've already got it back with everything sorted. They'd speculatively ordered a coil pack in on the basis of my description and that did the job. Cat joints got welded-up, and as a 'bonus' while it was up in the air they found a coolant leak that turned out to be a split hose which they replaced. Luckily it wasn't the radiator (although they aren't as expensive as I'd feared). Nice to drive the old thing again, and as I start working back in the office

On-and-off, I think I 'celebrate' 15 years on AS next month! More on the Picnic Sport here: https://mag.toyota.co.uk/toyota-heritage-fleet-the-story-of-the-picnic-sport-turbo/ Apparently they kept it as FWD but added an MR2 Turbo engine. 4wd versions were available elsewhere, that's what the kit I built represented.

Great news on the Avensis. Certainly thinning out around these parts. Sadly this SR in the same colour has been scrapped, its last MoT expired in 2017.

LS400 is going into the garage tomorrow. It repaid my excitement about going straight through the MoT then having an oil change by dropping out on half its cylinders, seems like a coil pack has failed. The exhaust heating up to cherry red and then splashing through puddles on the slow journey home doesn't seem to have done it any favours either, I'm hoping they can weld it up. Hoping to drop into a real post office later in the week so I can get the Laurel swapped over to historic tax.

It appears to have the most subtle two-tone paintwork ever. I have an inexplicable fondness for the Picnic (Ipsum in Japan). Toyota GB built this one-off Sport, complete with alloys off the Camry Sport. I still have a set of the latter so it could be recreated. Inspired by the above, I built a 1:24 version which will probably be the closest I'll ever get:

The Polo and Escort Mk1 settings are great.

Thanks. The wheels and tyres certainly gave me a bit of work to do, I had to cut out the rear inner arches and some of the floorpan, even then it was tight. Lowering it made that issue worse too. Now got the fun of working out what to start next.....

Got the Celica finished last nght, made use of decent weather this morning to grab some shots up on the flat roof: It's funny when I see a Berlingo in what I believe is this Mediterranean Blue colour to see how it turned out here. Goes nicely with these others from the '70s. The Sunny Truck was also by Hasegawa, they do some very nicely-detailed kits and I'll do another one or two this year.