My first reaction when I found this Toyota Carina GL TA60 for sale on a Bulgarian classifieds site was WTF?! But don’t let the looks at the front deceive you: this was done by a genuine enthusiast. Someone who really loved this Carina. Let me go over it completely.
The Carina
Let’s begin with the base of this car: it’s a 1982 Toyota Carina. As it features headrests on the rear seats and has a carpeted boot, it has to be the GL trim level. It features the 1.6-litre 2T engine, so we can narrow it down to a TA60. The seller mentions it’s a 5-speed manual, so its gearbox is a T50. In one of the photos are some German documents, so I suspect it originated from Germany many years ago.
The car has been damaged on the rear right quarter panel, but that has been repaired. Here and there there is some rust to be found, but nothing major. The seller claims the underside is relatively rust-free and it only needs a bit of TLC.
Modifications
As you have guessed from the first photo, this car has been modified. Extensively. So much so that I hardly know where to start. So let’s just start with the elephant in the room: the front of the car.
FWD Corolla E80 front bumper
The front bumper and underside air dam have been replaced by a Corolla E80 bumper. No, it wasn’t a zenki Levin AE86 bumper, but a 4 door sedan bumper. The front-wheel drive E80 and the Carina TA60 differ about 30 millimetres in width, and this is visible in the fitment of the bumper. It has been wrapped over the front fenders and now the bumper squeezes the front fenders. This causes the tapered look on the front indicator and parking lights. The seller claims he still has the original front bumper, so you would be able to fit that back into the car. However, the front fenders have been bent to fit the E80 bumper, so I hope they can still get back into the original shape.
VW Golf 1 lip
Under the E80 bumper, we find a lip. It looks like those typical front lips you can find on Nissan Sunny trucks. However, the origins of this lip are probably less JDM. Presumably it’s a VW Golf I front lip. Personally,ly I would have kept the Carina bumper and stuck this lip right under it, but that’s my personal taste.
Quad headlights
The headlights clearly have to mimic the JDM quad front headlights with a set of sealed beams. I’m not sure where these originated from, but they appear to be very closely related to the ones used on the Volvo 240 in the USA. I could be totally wrong here, but that’s what looked closest to these items. Also, the source of the grill is unknown. I personally think the headlights and grill are the most polarizing part of this car.
Fender mirrors
On top of the fenders, we find a set of fender-mounted mirrors. These appear to be genuine JDM parts, but the origin of them is unknown. The ones mounted on the Carina A60 and Corona T140 were either completely chromed, completely black or chromed on top with a black pod. These are black on top and a chromed pod. Also, the shape is slightly different, so they must have been sourced from another vehicle. Naturally, the holes in the front doors have been plugged with appropriate covers.
Door frame blackout
Looking from the side profile, we can see the door frames surrounding the glasshouse have been blacked out. This was only done on the GT(/GT-T/GT-R/GT-TR), SE and ST trim levels. Also, the Carina emblem has been removed from the triangular vents in the rear.
Over fenders
At the rear, a set of generic over fenders have been mounted. From above we can see they have been properly sealed to keep water and moisture out. However, they have been screwed onto the bodywork. You wouldn’t be able to remove them without a major rework of the original arches.
14-inch Pizza Cutter wheels
Within those arches, a set of 14-inch AE86 Pizza Cutter wheels have taken the place of the original 13-inch steel wheels. This is in line with the early JDM Carina GT/GT-T that featured those exact same wheels. The tires on this car are 165/65/R14, so they are 4.3% smaller in diameter compared to the OEM 13-inch steel wheels. The Carina GT/GT-T used 185/70/R14 and these would be 3.4% larger than the OEM 13-inch steel wheels.
Combined that ends up with a difference of nearly 8% and this really shows. The gap between the tyres and the arches is much wider than on the stock Carina. This wouldn’t be so bad if the car were lowered. However, given the car resides in Bulgaria, the owner wouldn’t be too keen on lowering the car too much as it would be a much bumpier ride with all the potholes. What this car really could use is a set of 9 or 10-inch wide wheels. My guess is that it also was the intention of the owner to mount such wheels.
Pioneer speakers
On the rear parcel shelf, we find a set of time period correct Pioneer speakers and a third brake light. The third brake light wasn’t mandatory until the late 1980s, but mine used to have one as well. The previous owner removed it as it wasn’t reliable anymore after 24 years. Anyway, I digress…
Interior
The interior is a bit worn. Especially the driver seat is worn out. The seller claims to own a set of Corolla seats that would replace this seat. However, Corolla seats have smaller seat rails, so it won’t be a drop-in replacement. The dashboard is also cracked and hence it’s got a dashboard cover on top of it.
Under the bonnet
Under the bonnet, we also find a few modifications. The most apparent one is the strut brace. Right under the strutbrace we don’t see the usual big air filter box. This is because the carburettor has been replaced by one from a Starlet including an aftermarket air filter. This carburettor is missing the auto-choke, so you will have to control it manually through that gigantic cable that snakes through the engine bay. I wasn’t able to spot where the owner put the lever for the choke though. Also, the viscous fan has been replaced in favour of an electric fan. Again, the owner still has the original fan.
Also, the exhaust has been modified. We can see the exhaust tip has been replaced by a dual straight pipe as seen with many Japanese kaido racers. Under the bonnet, the good old cast iron exhaust headers are still in place, so not all of it has been replaced.
Conclusion
I hope you now understand why I said the car is owned by an enthusiast. The owner put in a lot of modifications to make it appear more JDM. Unfortunately, not all parts are easily available in Bulgaria and importing from Japan is expensive. This would explain some of the choices made. For instance the VW Golf 1 front lip or the headlights. I could have mocked this car because of making the wrong choices, but it’s clear the owner loves the car and tries to do his best. Therefore I named it a BJDM Carina: a Bulgarian interpretation of JDM. I hope you agree with me.
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