Several readers have posted this nugget of awesomeness in our forums now, and with good reason. The Celica you see in the pic above is the end result of the most thorough, intense restoration we’ve ever seen for J-tin. It started life as a Group B rally car that competed in the Hong Kong-Beijing Rally of 1985 – when nearly all of that nation’s billion or so people were still riding bikes – enduring 2500 miles of dings and dents on unpaved terrain. Then it was left to rust for about 20 years.
At that point, most people would have written it off, but not the artisans at Makela Auto Tuning of Finland. By the looks of it, every body panel, seam, floorboard and frame rail was recreated from fresh steel. Metal is like putty to these people. We tried to comprehend the amount of effort and man-hours the restoration must have taken, but only reminded ourselves of grade school when we first learned about the concept of infinity. There’s really no point in even trying to describe it, so just check out their gallery. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, that’s over 300,000 words right there.
The best part is that as of January 2008, these mad Finns
have begun work on a second Hong Kong-Beijing Rally Celica. If possible, this car looks to be in even worse condition that the first one, apparently composed of one part metal and 3 parts rust. This time, they’ve cut the car down to the bare frame and are doing nothing short of rebuilding it from scratch. It’s like the Bionic Woman, but with cars.
I think the restoration was commisioned by the original driver Juha Kankkunen. It shows him in one of the photos.
I pride myself on the fact I’m pretty handy with an angle grinder and welder and have repaired some pretty bad stuff in my time. But that second Celica they are doing is eye wateringly bad. I’d seriously find it hard to know where to start. Eventy inch of that bodyshell seems to be rotten or completely beaten up. They’re in for the long haul getting that thing sorted!
Well,if any car is worth the effort a Celica is! 🙂