TORC’s 13th annual All-Toyotafest. [LINK]

One of our readers needs to get this, right now, and share the wealth. It’s a huge collection of NOS (new old stock) 1960s to early 80s Toyota parts from a closed dealership. The seller says it consists of a little bit of everything for old Corollas, Crowns, Land Cruisers, Starlets, Coronas, Carinas, Hiluxes and Cressidas. The actual mountain of parts includes taillights, headlights, exhausts, service manuals, relays, switches, trim, and sheetmetal. In other words, all the hard to get stuff. For anyone who has ever tried to restore an old car, you know this is a once in a lifetime chance. We already know we’ll be kicking ourselves in the future for passing on this opportunity. Someone buy this, please!

[Source: eBay]

There’s some sad news from Japan today, as we bring you news of the passing of Tatsuo Hasegawa. Hasegawa was first an aeronautical engineer, developing aircraft for the Tachikawa Aircraft Corporation. The prototype plane he worked on was scheduled to take flight on August 15 1945, precisely the day WWII ended, and thus never saw the skies. Hasegawa then took his expertise in aerodynamics to Toyota, where he headed teams responsible for many of the company’s iconic post-war automobiles, including the Publica, Sports 800, Corolla, Celica and Carina. He will be missed, but his legacy will live on in the cars that we know and love. He is survived by his wife Miyoko, 86, and his son Akio. You can read more about Hasegawa-san’s life at Akio’s site.

Thanks to RStreet for the tip.

The heavy damage sustained in drifting those E70 Corollas from this morning’s post reminded us of this round-headlight specimen that we saw in a junkyard last week. After we finished our first issue of JNC magazine, we finally had some downtime to hit the yards. This one was found at Crazy Ray’s U-Pull-It in Mt. Airy, Maryland and we thought we’d post it up for anyone who might be interested in recycling some parts. In fact, let’s just start a junkyard finds thread to centralize everything.

Yeah, we all know the AE86 Corolla is practically synonymous with drifting, but what if you want something that stands out from the crowd? Check out the guys from MotorFix, who specialize in sliding the previous generation E70 Corollas. Naturally, they’re all powered by the 4A-GE twin-cam from the AE86, which means old school style with slightly less old school tech. Check out Auto-Otaku for lots more pics of this crew and videos too.

[Source: Auto-Otaku]

Yesterday we posted about the beauty of road trips with an old ‘Rolla courtesy of The Truth About Cars. Turns out, they’ve been on a Corolla spree recently, with this article celebrating 40 years of the long-lived compact. Though the first ‘Rolla rolled off the assembly line in Japan in 1966, it didn’t take our shores by storm until 1968. We’ve been working on our own little blog post tribute in conjunction with the magazine, but they beat us to the punch fair and square, so take a look. Also, check out this Corolla 40th celebration that took place in Japan in 2006.

America ain’t perfect, but damn if she isn’t beautiful. Is there any greater joy in life than taking in this beauty behind the wheel of an old car? Forget voting and the right to pontificate, this is freedom, man. Forgive us as we delve into the realm of sentimentality, but if you want a foolproof cure for every depressing day you’ll ever have, all you need is one nostalgic car and a journey thats at least 500 miles long. Then the next time you feel the weight of the world on your temples, just remind yourself of this experience. For this writer, his beautifully written adventures in a Toyota Corolla have stayed with him, even 30 years later. You can’t buy medicine like that. Makes us want to take the old wagon out for a spin.

[TTAC]