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!

Remember the Car Guidance video of the Honda City I posted two weeks ago? Well, there is a whole series of Car Guidance videos and they are dull, boring and only focused on how to handle the car in a normal way.

So I will just bore you with them as well:

Actually this video about the Soarer GT Limited isn't that boring: I already spotted the badass 80s Carozzeria speakers at the shelve in the back of that Soarer. I also love those Soarer wheels: they are basically the same as the ones on my Carina (Celica Supra rims) but they have a different centercaps with a griffin (logo of the Soarer) on it.

Also great are the numerous switches on the steering wheel: but what can you adjust? The auto gearbox? The airbag suspension?

And what about the exciting ending? 11PM... Kitty bedtime?! :D

On a Celica Supra forum I found a topic about a Japanese Celica XX Meeting. For those who don't know the Celica XX: outside Japan it got sold as the Celica Supra MK2, also known as the MA6x and the GA6x. So it shares the same platform as the Celica and Carina A6.

I this topic I found a picture of one Celica XX wearing Toyota Soarer MK1 rims:

Normally I would have called them "Celica Supra rims", just like I did with my rims on the Carina. Technically they aren't Celica Supra rims since they featured on the Celica, Carina and Soarer as well.

Anyway, as you can see the Soarer rims have the Soarer logo (a griffin) on the centercaps instead of the Toyota logo on the normal rims. Of course I love to have these centercaps on my rims as well! Anyone got a set of those centercaps lying around?? ;)