QotW: What’s your best tale of JNC indestructibility?

Top Gear Toyota Hilux 01

One of the greatest things about owning a JNCs is its reliability. Think that’s boring? Well, while macchine nostalgico Italiano owners are leaking vital fluids, Deutsch nostalgischen auto owners are trying to figure out why you need to remove the transmission to change a bulb, and British reminiscing motorcar owners are studying for Master’s degrees in electrical engineering, JNC owners are out there driving their cars. We’re so cocky, we sometimes even willfully abuse our cars, knowing they’ll just roll with the punches.

What’s your best tale of JNC indestructibility?

What say you, dear reader? As always, the most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What once-common car has suddenly disappeared?” 

1993 Honda Civic Del Sol

There were a great many answers this week, ranging from Clark McCrery‘s very specific suggestion of a tuned 9-second Supra to Killer Bee‘s blanket statement of any 80s or 90s Mitsubishi. However, in the end it was mrbill‘s comment that had just the right balance of humor, reasoning and proper grammar:

Maybe the heavy-handed Honda heaven depicted in the lead-pic is stirring my subconscious thought on this one, but one ride I used to see everywhere was the funky little bean known as the Honda Del Sol. I realize it has not yet reached nostalgic status, but it answers the question.

These weird little Hondas used to be thick like gnats in my part of Oklahoma, which is crazy because they’re pointless little cars that don’t offer you anything you can really use. Not even a back seat! Man did people love them though.

For a solid few weeks in the Spring and Fall you could actually pull the top off and enjoy the windy, sun-filled sky. The rest of the year it was either ball-drippingly hot or snot-freezingly cold.

Here’s to Joe! My weird little brother that loved his blue Del Sol enough to try and give it some life via an internet purchased cold-air intake.

I haven’t seen one on the road for some time…maybe that’s a good thing.

Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!

JNC Decal smash

Images courtesy of Top Gear, Honda.

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20 Responses to QotW: What’s your best tale of JNC indestructibility?

  1. Cesariojpn says:

    A half ton of cinder blocks stuffed into one Tercel Wagon my friend did once years ago. It surprisingly handled it well for several miles.

  2. Scotty G says:

    In the early-1980s, after high school, before the majority of the JNC readers were even born, or maybe before their parents were born, I had my ’71 Toyota Corolla wagon on the ice-racing track on the Lake Superior harbor in Duluth, MN. It was an off-time when the track wasn’t officially open, and, in fact I wasn’t supposed to be out there.

    On one of my laps as I slid around towards the parking area, I saw a couple of younger guys with an old Lincoln Continental drive out on to the track. They had a red, Honda ATV (one of the 3-wheel models) in the trunk of that huge car and they were going to take it onto the track but they had gotten the Lincoln stuck in a snowbank out on the ice. I pulled in behind them and got out to help them push, but to no avail. As the Lincoln’s single-tire was spinning and spinning (no posi-traction, unfortunately), the tire blew and then chunks of it flew into my RF fender putting a dent in my little, red 2-door wagon! Not good, and now what? Not even saying “Sorry about that” or anything, they asked me if I could help them get their Honda ATV home somehow. Being the gullible person that, unfortunately, I still am, I came up with a plan.

    I opened the rear hatch and we lifted the front wheel of the ATV up into the back of the tiny wagon with the two rear wheels still on the ground. The two guys got into the car for a highly-illegal drive home, through downtown Duluth and up the hill (Duluth is built on a hill on the shores of Lake Superior) to their house. We tied it in as good as we could and one of them was in the back holding onto the front wheel so the ATV so it didn’t flop out and roll down the hill on the drive home. I still can’t believe that we didn’t get pulled over on the way to their house.

  3. Ant says:

    Perhaps my favourite is that the MX-5 specialist I bought my Eunos Roadster from still has every single one of the pop-up headlamp motors he bought when he started the business 15 years ago, since they never go wrong and he’s never needed to replace one for a customer…

  4. Banpei says:

    My father and his Carina wagon, they were an indestructible couple. 😉

    My father works as a contractor and after he sold his Mercedes pickup truck in 1980 he started to use wagons to haul stuff around and if it didn’t in or on top of the car he would use a trailer. The car would only need an oil change when the warning light starts to blink and you may have a flat tire when you hear a continuous rumbling noise on the highway for three kilometers. These cars were literally abused till they died.

    His first car was a Peugeot 304 wagon and that lasted 4 years and got traded in with a broken speedo and patched up bodywork for a second hand Toyota Carina TA60 wagon on LPG. The Toyota Carina got traded in after six years for for a two year old Peugeot 505 break (wagon) which was his dream car. The 505 went up in flames after six months, so he bought an Aro 10 4×4. After needing an engine swap after one year and half a years it got laid up on his driveway and bought a shabby Ford Sierra wagon. That car died three years later after continuous abuse and a unstoppable need of a can of oil prior to any journey. Then he bought an Opel Kadett wagon that died after towing more than two tonnes of weight on a trailer. Quickly followed by an Opel Combi (Kadett based van) that also quickly exchanged its role for a ten year old Volvo 740 wagon on LPG and failed its MOT after two years. This is just two decades of car abuse…

    So what we learn from this is that the Toyota Carina lasted six years of abuse while most of his cars even couldn’t survive three! There were numerous events where the Carina magically survived fires due to LPG leaks (check the story here: http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/2015/06/15/qotw-whats-your-best-car-story-with-dad/) , disappearing brakepads, hauling two tonnes regularly and best of them all: never go to the garage unless the car won’t move. I think the simplicity of the 2T engine, T40 gearbox and the sturdiness of the chassis made this car endure so much abuse.

  5. dickie says:

    When I picked up my ’79 Cressida wagon, it had been sitting for “10 years,” according to the previous owner. Bought new from the dealer for reasons of fuel economy relative to the domestic offerings of the time, they intended to haul family members across the country in the comfort afforded by the spacious seating in the flagship Toyota. At some point, it was relegated to farm implement status – it hauled goats (yes really) in the rear over uneven gravel roads and the occasional prarie – and then served as a last-resort mode of transportation for a multiple-DUI offender to get him to/from his drinking hole of preference. The smashed-out driver side window and hacked together fuse panel was testament to a particularly bad night in which he had his keys taken but managed to gain entry to the car with the intent of hotwiring it. Then there’s the caved-in hood, apparently caused by a bull at pasture “sitting” on the car where it was parked. The interior was home to a litter of kittens just prior to my acquisition of the car from the most recent registered owner, an invalid who left it parked in the Tulsa sun to bake and rot as a makeshift storage unit for her odds and ends that wouldn’t fit in the modest cabin she called her house.

    Despite the interesting backstory, all it took for me to get it back on the road for a 9 hour road trip at 65+ miles per hour (with no working overdrive) was a fresh can of gas, topping off the oil and swapping a single flat out for the fullsize spare. I even picked up some baseball stats and local news on the AM radio for the ride home. Barely made it before we lost sunlight as the headlights were FUBAR due to some “creative” wiring by the aforementioned drunk.

    Years later, the car ran well enough to haul most of my tools and belongings during two separate moves and as an occasional commuter when my daily wasn’t feeling up to the task. Now it’s getting the attention it deserves with an engine/transmission/rear end swap, but since all of the parts are Toyota I expect it to last another 40+ years without any sort of major hiccups.

  6. Chad says:

    A friend and I drove home from Home Depot with 10 – 50lb bags of cement in the back of my 82 RX-7. The under-steer was probably in the 99% range.

  7. Spudenater says:

    Alright, buckle in folks cause I’m going to tell you what everyone already knows. Old Toyota pickups are indestructible.

    So my old room-mate was in need of a car a while back, with no driving experience, a three digit budget, and a bedroom that tends to look like skid-row after a hurricane, I knew whatever we got him would need to be tough as snot. I managed to find a 1989 Toyota Pickup with 250k on the clock, that had been sitting in a backyard for 5 or 6 years after retiring from being a work truck in spanish-speaking south San Antonio. It took some convincing to wake the old girl up, but some carb cleaner and fresh gas, a little air in the tires and we were on the road. 4 speeds, no power anything, and the rock-solid 22R up front; perfect! Or so I thought.

    The thing you have to know about this guy, we’ll call him Aaron, is that Aaron is the living embodiment of entropy. I’m pretty sure he’s secretly the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, or at least the patron saint of overgrown weeds and falling property values.

    So anyway, fast forward about a year or so, and he’s been dailying this pickup (affectionately named Frida) to and from his hourly position at a deli. Things are quiet, too quiet for Aaron. Aside from the carb running hella rich, the thing goes like clockwork. Add 87 octane and go, rinse and repeat. Eventually though, the inevitable happens and I get a call, something’s amiss, the truck’s running weird. A combination of deferred maintenance and a barely functional temp gauge means he’s been driving it with ZERO coolant in 100*+ temps for who knows how long. It takes gallons and gallons to top it off, but it seems to recover okay (as well as it can with the FUBAR carb anyway).

    Another week, another call, it’s happening. He’s murdering this truck and there’s nothing I can do aside from chew him out, he is living entropy after all. The pickup’s making loud noises of some sort from the motor. I arrive praying it’s not rod knock and find crazy loud valvetrain noise, and go figure, almost ZERO oil in the motor. Filled it with cheap-o wal-mart oil and drove it home, the noise got slightly better, but it still sounded like a Detriot diesel. I told him to expect this trucks funeral within 3 months as I suspected the head gasket was done for too. I secretly kicked myself for getting him a Toyota. I mean yeah it will outlast a Hyundai, but I’m like that crazy cat lady down the street, I want all Toyotas to come live with me and last forever, no matter how disheveled they are, and this one is on its way to the big junkyard in the sky… Or so I thought.

    Fast forward six months, and it stalls unexpectedly down the road from our house, I tow it back with my ’80 Corolla wagon after leaving it overnight in a McDonalds parking lot, he says it’s dead. I, having the magic Toyotaku touch manage to get it to start like usual. He’s spooked though and won’t drive it lest he’s late to work, so it’s back to the bus for him. We work out an arrangement, and I take the truck, not having a clue what to do with it. The headgasket is toast, it uses/mixes oil and water, overheats constantly, smokes, leaks, wreaks of gas and is in the high 200k miles. And yet it still starts first time, every time. Pump the gas once, turn the key and vroom! It’s not happy about it, but the little bugger soldiers on.

    Eventually, I trade it to my mechanic for some work, and when he pulls the motor apart (still able to run, mind you) here’s what he finds. The timing chain tensioner is ground to a nub, the headgasket blew in 4 places, the head is warped like crazy, two cylinders have pretty much no rings and major cylinder wall scarring, chipped valves, busted valve springs, and the crankcase had like 15qts of sludge in it. And the best part? The cam was only being held in place by ONE of its guides, the others had exploded all over the inside of the motor leaving debris and shrapnel everywhere. And it STILL RAN, pretty well too all things considered. I mean you could even do 80 on the freeway as long as you remembered to pull over every 5 miles and give it more water.

    As of today, it sits idle in the side lot of a sketchy looking mechanic shop, awaiting a motor transplant and a new lease on life. The chassis is actually solid, and with a new engine I’m confident it would run another 300k miles easy. She was beat up bad but ol’ Frida was too tough for Aaron, which is an honor bestowed among few other things in our mortal world. The best part about this is that it’s not special, it’s a story that’s happening all day, every day, all over the world. Old JNC’s getting the tar whipped out of them, but refusing to give up. And that’s just ONE of the reasons we love ’em, am I right?

  8. Ben Easton says:

    10 years ago I purchased a slightly ratty-looking (there were actual rat nests in every orifice of the vehicle) ’84 Celica RA64. I knew it needed work, but it ran and was road legal. I drove it for a summer, and was plagued with an oil/coolant mixing problem. Good old 22R-E… I replaced the head gasket that winter, timing cover gaskets, and all the tibdits that could cause such mixing. The engine had no signs of excessive wear, and always ran like a top. So I was quite confident of the new head and other gaskets being an easy fix.

    That spring, after a decent bit of test driving, I decided to take the Celica for a good run, maybe 300Km or so, mostly highway (which may or may have no included some excessive speeding in no traffic) And on my way home, after resuming cruising speed I started to hear some uh-oh noises, sounded like a valve ticking, only it got louder and louder very quickly, I pulled onto a side road, and before I got very far there was a loud bang and the engine and wheels locked up solid. It was pitch black outside. No cellphone. Unfamiliar neighborhood. So I decided to walk to the first house I saw with lights on, I knocked on the door, low and behold I recognized the person and he let me use his phone. I got a ride home. I had to leave my poor, dead car on the side of the road….

    The next day came and I got a ride to my car with a friend, to make sure nothing had been stolen/tampered with, and to remove any valuables I may want. Just for shits n ‘giggles, I popped the key in the ignition, and turned it, that motor fired right up as if nothing had ever happened, apart from the fact that it was obviously lacking the function a cylinder. I said f*** it, I’m gonna drive it home! or as far as I can. The engine was toast anyway. So I managed to keep it at 70-80 kmh for the 30 or so km ride home, I was about 1 km from my house when there were some more uh-oh noises and once again the engine locked up solid. Ok, we went to my house and got my trusty old 84’ F-150 and towed the Toyota the rest of the way.

    Later that day my good mechanic friend came over to survey the damage, and he asked if he could try to start it, I said no, then reluctantly said ok, we may as well attempt to drive it into the shop if by some crazy luck it would start. Well it fired right up. It took full throttle to keep it at 2000RPM and limp into the shop, but it made it, awful colored smoke coming from the tailpipe. Being 20 or so at the time I thought it would be fun to try and kill the motor once and for all, so I held it to the floor for about 3 minutes till the poor old engine finally exploded. Hole in each side of the block, and straight through the oil pan. Coolant and oil and smoke all over the place. It was finally dead.

    For one last laugh I turned the key…. And that little 22R-E fired right back up. Cylinder 1 and 4 were missing their pistons, connecting rods on the floor in pieces. It still ran. After that I removed the engine from the car. I guess I can’t say I really killed it, as it was ‘running’ the last time I tried it… Turned out the culprit from the very beginning was a loose plug in the head, below the cam. Trading fluids for too many miles for the bearings to handle.

    I’ve since replaced engines twice, and am currently in the midst of a third engine swap. I just love that little car too much to not keep it going. Toyota trucks are plentiful as engine donors!

  9. Jim Daniels says:

    The story of Clutch.
    In 1972 a family I was yet to meet purchased a Toyota Corolla wagon in Gumbi Green. Now, Toyota must have know where this car was going. So, they gave it some special attention, a blessing, hope and a prayer as it would never be treated kindly again. In 1977 I moved to a very small town in Northern California’s high mountain country and became friends with Roger. Roger and I were in 8th. grade when we met in this Mountain community that had many more miles of dirt logging roads than paved roads. Neither of us could drive legally, so, Clutch the 1972 Toyota Corolla wagon in Gumbi green should have been safe.

    For the first 10 years of Clutches life he sat outside 24-7. There was no garage queen stuff for this car. Clutch endured summer temperatures at 100 degrees and snow piled on top of him in the winters. Some times the snow and ice was minimal 6 in. to 12 in. and other times there was 3-4 feet. One time Clutch was berried under 8 feet of snow.
    Now at Roger’s home there was a mother and father who was the primary driver for the first 10 years and there were 3 health boys. Now the family was capable of taking care of Clutch but clutch was not a priority. Family and sports were the only priority’s in this home.

    If the snow conditions were bad Clutch could just sit. Roger’s mom could walk to work so Clutch frequently would sit covered in ice and snow until the sun melted it all away. There was never a chance of one of the boys digging out the car and getting the destructive ice off of the car so Mom would have a car to drive.

    In approximately 1981 Roger and I were old enough to get driver licenses. At this point in Clutch’s life he had approximately 180,000 mile on the odometer. I never knew anyone to change the oil so I would guess it still had the oil it left Japan with. Now, Roger had a cute relative that live over 300 miles away and they were going to take Clutch on a road trip for a visit. Cute girl and road trip, I was up for that even though his mom would be Driving.

    After about the first 50 miles I noticed a funny sound from the motor. This went on for more than another 50 miles when we finally stopped for gas. I discussed the funny sound and was told it was nothing but they allowed me, a second year auto shop student to take a look. I pulled out the oil dip stick and there was nothing on it.

    I asked when the last time the oil was changed and I was told we do not change the oil. It has never been done. At that point we purchased enough oil to fill it to the top of the full mark. I was expecting a complete melt down before we reached our destination. But this was Clutch and as I learned Clutch would not fail his abusers. Clutch did not know how to fail. It was not in his Toyota DNA.

    Clutch was a hunting buddy that would take us out duck hunting breaking through ice puddles and sliding around in the mud. Roger was the oldest of three boys and by far the easiest on Clutch. Remember, there are three boys. This is the car they all learned to drive in. The car mom and dad let all the boys drive.

    As I said most of the roads were dirt. So, you know all the parties were in the woods. Parties in the woods can get a little exciting at times with mud bogs and ice/snow bogs. Clutch was a part of all of it. If clutch got stuck someone would pull him out and then try it again with more speed.

    There were many stories of the air Clutch would catch and how many kids were in the car at the time. Some of the kids winding up in the back of the wagon as Clutch would launch and then land. A lot of this abuse occurred while Clutch’s drives were drunk and or stoned.

    To my knowledge the closest thing Clutch ever had to a full oil change was the day I add enough oil to get him to the top of the full mark on the dip stick, all while on a trip where he had been knocking for over 50 miles. I imagine Clutch only had oil add most of his life. But you have to remember, this is Clutch. Clutch was sold with 420,000 miles on the clock.

    The new owner was mechanically inclined and he felt the car had lasted for so long and through the three boys, that it would be good for more years with some maintenance. I remember seeing Clutch on the road for at least another 10 years. I have no idea of what it took to keep old Clutch on the road for those last 10 years. Clutch was abused and did not know how to fail and that is the DNA that Toyota has made a reputation on.

    RIP. Clutch, you were an unfailing automobile.

  10. Ryan Senensky says:

    I’ve never seen a 4A-GE bottom end component in my life.

    • Ryan Senensky says:

      I’ve heard rumors of people blowing up 4A-GEs but I’ve never personally seen it happen. I’ve seen heavily turboed 4A-GEs, 4A-GEs rev to 9,500 RPM and 85 MR2s with 350,000 miles running a quart low on oil. But I’ve never seen one window a block or spin a rod bearing.

    • Banpei says:

      Most of the time the cars die before the 4AGE does… Reminds me of Davidsfarm’s AE92:

  11. PDXBryan says:

    Great question this time! This is the crux of why so many of us love these old Japanese cars. They want to run and run and run and……

  12. Colin says:

    I’m not going to buck the trend here, with my vote going to a particular RN30 Hilux I used to own.

    I was living in South Western Australia and driving my little truck daily as a work hack to and from the mines. She mowed down her fair share of roo’s, and traversed many empty kilometres of bush with nought but a shovel and a jerry can strapped to the deck.

    I had been running her rather hard for a time, and had been meaning to get to fixing the valve clearances in the little 12r when a calamity struck not far from home. Bush fires here are very lethal unpredictable beasts, moving quickly across the grassy scrub they try to farm here, and one had been lit by a firebug the night before.

    I headed down the road towards the smoke with the little four banger coughing along as it always did and upon arriving spent some time helping the boys in blue direct traffic around the fires. The footy was on and it seemed every man and his dog was trying to make it to the Fremantle game that evening, so they had their hands full. After some time a older gent came galloping out of the smoke from up beyond the detour, making a fair clip and looking like he’d just spent a lifetime in the coal. Upon reaching me he asked if I had wheels and could I help him. I agreed and we jumped in the ute, barrelled back up the highway and into the smoke, heading towards his property. He said he had a bunch of stock corralled in a paddock next to the house but didn’t think the house was going to make it, so could I use the ute to shift the stock to some land out of the fire’s path about six hundred metres away on the other side of the highway. Sure thing, may as well have a crack.

    We shifted about two dozen sheep and one heifer in three trips. I had most of them in the tray but did the first two trips with three sheep in the cab alongside me as well. The smoke wasn’t helping the little motor much but it lurched out of the paddock every time, and got it’s pep back when the loads came off. After the third trip I found the man at his house crying. His tears were smeared all over his face, blackened from the smoke, and it was one of the saddest sights I’ve seen in my life. It was his father’s place before him, and he was heartbroken at the prospect of losing it. At that moment I made a fairly dumb decision and told him I thought we could try saving it.

    I parked the ute about twenty metres from the house as it had a full jerry on the back and three quarters of a tank still underneath it and I didn’t want it to blow us up if we got overwhelmed. At that point I pretty much accepted I wouldn’t ever drive her again. We then spent the next two hours soaking his roof with the rain water tanks and a little 2.5hp honda pump, while the fire bore down on us from the North West. The smoke was so thick we lost most of the daylight, and our only respite was when the helicopters flew over our heads and momentarily spun it away in the rotor wash. The fire came with ten to fifteen metres of the house in some spots, and it was at that point, with a break in my water supply from the pump, that we abandoned the house to the will of the fire. I found the old bloke in the back yard trying to fix a large leak at the pump connection. A small spot fire had started under the pump and melted the hose. We made for the driveway hoping we could shelter on the tarmac of the highway and walk up past the fire to an already burnt area out of the bulk of the smoke. The farmer was in a pretty bad way, and pretty slow out the gate so when the ute appeared out of the smoke I thought we’d give it a shot. I popped him down in the passengers seat and fired it up, then we drove out of the fire by pushing further up the road as we had planned.

    I’ve got to apologise at this point for making you read so much, but it is quite important to understand the context of the situation. My little white Toyota had weathered the fire storm, and delivered myself, the old farmer, and his animals to safety, without so much a hiccup when our lives all depended on it. It was only after the event that I noticed the melted paint, charred window rubbers, and the black remains of my red plastic jerry can, which I’m guessing exploded at some point while I was on the roof.

    I fixed her up and sold her last year, and every once and a while I see it around my town with her new owner giving me a wave from the behind the wheel.

    I do wonder if he’s finding soot and wool in odd places every now and then.

    P.S. Thank you for the opportunity to share that story, it was quite cathartic to write about and gave me a chance to clear my head of what was a very emotional experience.

  13. superjesus says:

    i once came across a toyota hilux with 700.000km on the teller, although that’s not too impressive itself considering its a hilux, what made it incredible was its spend its entire life in the kalahari desert hauling weekly supplies of water, food, petrol and building materials between the nearby village and farm. no major modifications were ever done to it besides wheels and new shocks every now and then, even the engine was this original and started first time everytime.

  14. dfunkt says:

    i’ll keep this short and sweet.
    MS65 crown running the 4M/auto combo.
    Blew head gasket between piston and water port, possibly between 5-6 cylinders to.
    Drove for 3,000kms with no water, was maybe 15,000kms since last oil change.
    Still started first time whenever I wanted to go anywhere and didn’t ever complain while running.
    Whether it be to the shops 3kms away, or a mate’s place 80kms away on 100km/h freeways, it kept faithfully chugging me to my destination.

  15. bert says:

    Well, um….this is more a story of destructibility. But there’s some indestructibility at the end!

    My father gave me a 1980 Toyota Corolla 2door hatchback. It had a slushbox, the window on the drivers side was missing, and there was no ignition. To start it, I had to plug two wires together and push a button on the dash! To shut it off, simply pull the two wires apart, burning your fingerprints off in the process. It made a great getaway car! Anyway, it developed this backfire that was incredibly loud. I remember pulling up at a gas station in Seattle’s U-district, shut the car off, my buddy and I went inside and five minutes later the car backfired so hard it blew the bottom of the muffler off at the welds! Every homie in a five block radius hit the deck! So I parked it at my grandmas house and left it for a bit. One day one of my cousins was bored and decided he could fix the backfire. I told him fine, as long as he only drove it around grandmas field and not on the street. Later at the RV dealer I worked at I was called up to the front desk where the manager listed off a bunch of instructions..”Robert, I want you to take this motorhome and fill it up with diesel, wash this trailer for delivery, fill these propane tanks, after lunch drive the customer shuttle, your grandma called and said your car blew up, and don’t forget to clean the shop before you leave. Now repeat back what I just told you.”
    “Fuel motorhome, wash trailer, propane tanks, car blew up, clean sho….. wait, WHAT THE HELL?! MY CAR BLEW UP!?!?!?!?!?”
    “Yea, but she said it was ok, cause the fire department just left!”
    After work I rushed home to see what had happened. Apparently my cousin and his friend had the car running pretty well, to where it wasn’t backfiring anymore. Or so they thought. They were cruising around grandmas lower field, drove over an old truck chassis in the grass, punched a whole in the gas tank, the car backfired and blew up! My cousin ditched, leaving his friend sitting there wondering where everybody went. They were both ok, but the car was not. I stood there staring at the charred remains, the tires were gone, the dash was gone, the only thing left of the seats were the metal springs, even the rubber off the steering wheel was gone! All the glass had melted, and there was a giant hole in the back where the floor used to be. But there was one nagging question at the back of my mind, does it still run? I plugged the two wires together, pushed the melted button, AND THE DAMN THING FIRED RIGHT UP!! Of course it only ran for a few seconds till all the gas burned out of the carb, but it was a testament to the durability of Toyota’s!

  16. Cory Ephland says:

    I had a ’93 Integra GSR. 190,000+ on the odometer. Blown sincro for third gear. Totaled it in a front end collision, drove it home. Then a week later jumped it off a 20 foot cliff, pulled it back up with a crane changed a blown tire from the landing, then drove it home. The poor thing had been through hell and wrecked twice and still drove straight with plenty of power to beat a tuned Civic…. I miss that car. Really want another one.

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