Toyotafest 2016

I’ve been going to Toyotafest since I first started my move to California. When I was in the process of moving out from the midwest I brought my IS300 out at the perfect time to check out Toyotafest and drop the car off at the shop I was going to be working at. I then bought a Camry to drive back and flip. 9 Years later I finally have a car I felt should be shown. Of course the car has spent most of its restored life attending Toyotafest (and the JCCS) so none of this was new to the Hachi.

Of course this was the first time the Corolla was making the drive to the show from San Jose, so the weeks leading up to the show was a bit of a crunch time. The big thing was the Suspension Upgrade but there were also the interior changes, and other details that had to be finished as well. With all that done I took the Thursday and Friday before the show off from work. Thursday was a clean/finish the car day and Friday was suppose to be the travel day. Thursday offered beautiful weather and we spent the day scrubbing every inch of the car.

I started with the engine bay, and then worked my way to the under carriage pulling one wheel at a time. Four trashed brushes and 6 bottles of degreaser later I was happy enough to start moving on.

The front portion of the APEXi muffler was re-polished to remove some sort of debris that had melted to it at some point.

The body has always been kept pretty clean so that was easy part. A standard wash, wax, and it was pretty much good to go. So back to the engine bay I went.

Some last minute engine bay detailing. Photo lights come in quite handy to see what your doing in the recesses of the engine bay!

And then Friday. I had a few last minute details that needed to be finished up Friday morning and by the time I finally opened the shop door. Rain!

Standing in the rain staring at the very clean car trying to decide if it was going to get wet.

I knew there was a chance but hoped this whole drought thing would help me out for once. Nope. We decided to see if we could wait it out a bit and had lunch, and putzed around the shop for a while, but at the end we were running out of time to make the drive and still actually get some sleep.

Sitting in traffic on the 101… still in the rain.

Jamie drove my 4Runner down as a “just in case” vehicle, while I drove the AE86 down enjoying that Exedy Carbon clutch in the rain and traffic.

Eventually we passed through the rain and stopped for a bite and a qiuck rinse. At least it got the majority of the mud off of it.

We arrived at the hotel around 9pm and tried to get some sleep since we knew we had to spend a couple hours cleaning the car again in the morning.

Even the car woke up with only enough energy to hold one eye open.

Despite the headlight issue we ran to the car wash and spent a couple hours cleaning up the car properly. Then it rained. We were about halfway from the hotel to the show when it rained just enough to wet the car and of course the road in front of it. Tech tip: Never follow a truck with all terrain tires through the rain on your way to a car show.

We got the car in place and wiped the car down once again. Then it rained. So one more quick detail before the show.

The show itself was good. The AE86 introduced us to quite a few new people as well as some of it’s old friends.

Apparently some of the changes I have made are just enough to start to confuse people that knew the car in the previous owners exact set up. A simple “yes it was Janet’s car” usually took their bewildered look away.

Remind me to get a “look but don’t touch” sign before the next show.

We could have ended the show right here and I would have had a good time, but bringing home another trophy for it was an added icing on the cake.

They did not technically hand out first through third place trophies this year it was 3 equal appreciation awards, and in the Old School Corolla class I can understand why. While all of the award winners fit within the class category, they were done in 3 different styles. One being a stock restoration, and the other being more heavily modified than mine. I would not have wanted to compare the 3 cars either.

I had originally thought about trying to do some cool LA photos while we were there but I was so tired after the show that it just didn’t happen.

Of course we started Sunday off be revisiting the car wash to get the hotels sprinkler systems hard water spots off before the sun baked them on. Once we were done there we hit the 101 just long enough to move over Highway 1 for a nice coastal drive up to Carmel-By-The-Sea.

The drive was overall fantastic and the new suspension worked awesome. Other than a bit of traffic and a sunburn I can’t complain at all about the drive up.

Only down side to a Sunday afternoon on Hwy 1 is that there are too many people to actually find any clear spots to do the cliche Car on the coast shots that I wanted to. Maybe next time.