Today I own my TA60 Carina for exactly three years! I bought it on the seventh of the seventh of the seventh (07-07-2007), so in other words: lucky seven! This is what the car looked like when I bought it:

When I bought the Carina TA60
You can even see my old AE86 parked in front of it!

I bought the car after my girlfriend (in the meanwhile she became my wife) became pregnant of our son. When test fitting the child seats in the AE86 it was clear that the only way to fit the child seat was to put it in the front seat. Since everyone trying to sit in the back of the AE86 was complaining about every speedbump I took, cramps and more of that I realized it would be impossible to keep the AE86. So I tried to find a four door Cressida, Corona or Carina and found this Carina in a good deal. Basically the TA60 Carina can be considered a four door AE86 with a puny engine: it has (almost) the same axle, the same gearbox, the same steering rack, same front struts and the only difference is the absence of a 4AGE and a LSD!
Read on for the whole story and more pictures!

This is about the coolest wheel pic I've seen this month:

Glow in the dark rims!
The only problem is that you need to shine some light on it first... So, where can I get some of that paint to accentuate my 15 inch Celica XX rims?

Found at Jasonsgrainofsalt

Spotted this picture on Ekhatch's weblog yesterday:

Enkei Paramount wheels?
Now that is certainly a Wheel of Fortune set of rims!
I can already picture Vanna White flipping the letters on the license-plate of the car these wheels are mounted on. ;)

As a follow up on last Mondays How to change a tire by hand? an high tech machine to change tires automated:

Now that certainly is a big difference compared by doing that by hand! :D

Actually in both titles change should actually have been remove: in both videos the tires get removed and no new tires will be mounted on the rims again.

Also this machine was new to me: I'm still used to the old hub rotating machines where you stick an arm on the hub (and between the tire and the rim). Not anything near this machine with three different arms to loosen the tire from the bead and another arm to push the tire and another finger coming from the first arm to actually remove the tire... Maybe I only went to old fashioned tire shops in the past! :D :D

I have no idea why, but maybe this guy thought it would be bad for his power to weight ratio to bring along spare rims with tires on a drift session. So he only brings along a spare tire and some tire changing tools!

First he starts to separate the tire from the bead on both sides which takes him roughly six minutes to finish. Unfortunately the video stops after they guy explaining the next steps. But I can imagine he would be sitting there changing his tires the rest of the day! :D