By Jim Brennan
Welcome to another Hooniverse Weekend, and this weekend I thought I would bring you some of the weird postings that I found on Craigslist. We already discovered a shortened Oldsmobile, an altered Studebaker, and a Peterbilt star double, now let’s discover a Toyota Celica that has received a Roof-ectemy…
According to the listing:
up for sale is one of too many projects I own. its a 1977 celica gt coupe. the previous owner cut the roof off. I have the original roof. would make a badass rat rod project. 20r straight 4. weber 2bbl. 5 speed, front disc rear drum, rear wheel drive. ran and drove when parked. stored with no gas in it, will run off of carb cleaner or starter fluid to show that im not full of shit. but has been sitting for 2 years. will need a windshield. boxes of extra parts, can deliver within reason. open for trade, send me offers.
Asking price for this roofless Celica is $1,000. Great starting point for a 24 Hours of LeMons entry, but I can’t think of anything else it would be good for. See the listing here, and tell me what you think…
Beige Celica Image Credit: Old Parked Cars
Jeff Glucker
That's a great looking roadster. I'm surprised that more people, much less Toyota, never had the idea to make one. Whatever's wrong with the project will be simple and cheap enough to fix, except maybe the chassis flex. And the cramped cabin and low roof which was one of the larger drawbacks of the original, has been cut out of the equation.
…um wasn't there a celica convertible in the eighties?
There were the Sunchasers (like a 3-Series Baur TC), but I think they were conversions (ASC?).
I think Brett from Apocalyptic racing needs this so he can field a 2 car team. lol. Needs a 20r/22r hybrid engine in it with a BIG ass holley.
They should have left the same amount of C pillar on the passenger side as the driver side and added matching lids. That would hqve evened out this project. Add a bit of c pillar or remove the other make a tin panel for the rear shelf and some kind of frame (maybe a steel 2×4 cut down the middle and welded to the floor just inside the rocker panel from front to back) and youd have a neat roadster heap for those sunny weekend cruises.
It looks like they have tried to avoid reworking the end of the parcel shelf where it joins the remains of the C-pillar – going from the rear view, it appears that the driver's side of the parcel shelf angles up slightly to pass over the filler tube. Like you, I'd want to lay that area flat, even if it means building a new parcel shelf. I'd also build up a fiberglass headrest fairing over the rear seat and parcel shelf area, and to have the gas cap sitting flush with the top of the fairing (maybe even do matching caps on each side).
Nobody concerned about this unibody collapsing? I would be.
Na…just weld the doors shut.
Thats why I would build some kind of frame from one end to the other.
Hey, I'm actually the owner of this loaf. Someone on NASIOC sent me this way from my for sale thread. I read through the comments and all of the ideas posted where the same I had. Simple 6 point roll bar, butterfly brace for the subframe. Laying the filler neck into the parcel shelf via a shorter hose. I can't believe this actually got posted somewhere haha. The previous owner started to cut the roof, and by the time I got my hands on it.. it was beyond feasibpe repair. So I finished it off! I never had plans of driving it in bad weather so it wasn't of much concern.