My car's officially been pimped

FROM THE FAR EAST TO EAST NEW YORK

Just this past Tuesday I had the day off and the weather was so nice that I decided to spend the afternoon on a bike ride out to Far Rockaway. Somewhere on the Northern edge of East New York I passed this little number:

Man the nostalgia was almost too much to bear! This is a 1982-1983 Toyota Corolla DX station wagon exactly like the last car I owned. Mine was a chewed up wreck that spent every one of its 30 years on the mean streets of NYC, with 13 different registered owners listed (and I bought it from someone who never put it in their name!). This one is in pristine shape.

Somebody gave this ride the treatment though; sporty aftermarket mirrors mounted up on the fenders (like they were on early Corollas meant for the Japanese market), nice but not too gaudy wheels, and a full-length vinyl roof. The roof in particular is something you almost never see on wagons because of the sheer amount of material it requires. This tiny Toyota wagon probably has the same roof square footage as an American 4 door of the era though so I guess it's not too crazy. 

They went for it; the vinyl even goes down the back, surrounding the rear window! I couldn't take too many shots as the park next to this car had plenty of folks milling about and there was a decent amount of foot traffic. The last thing I needed to do was take an interior shot of a pimped-out Toyota in East NY in front of a few benches full of people. I'd get suspicious too!

This ride is so cherry that I'd love to hop in and take a spin to see how it compares to my old beast. The color looks to be the original factory choice Silver Poly. 

As I've said countless times if you want to drive and park on the streets of the outer boroughs and don't want to bother with tickets or insurance just get yourself a single out of state plate for the back. I've seen this move on cars that still had last years NY registration and inspection stickers in the windshield! There are even a couple of businesses around Gowanus that have the single out of state plate on the back and their local business address and phone number painted on the doors.

We'll close this one out with a rather sad photo sent to me in a text recently. A friend sent this and wrote "Is this your car? If so it's parked at the absolute end of the Coney Island Boardwalk". With that ridiculous yellow paint job and massive hole behind the rear wheel I am certain that it is. With the history that this thing has already had I'm pretty sure someone will decide to make it presentable again so that it might be "like a Phoenix, rising from Arizona!" - Frank Costanza