When it comes to our vehicles, we have an admittedly odd couple…While our primary car is the electric, eco-conscious Volt, our Sunday Driver/fun car is a turbo swapped 6th gen ’99 Celica. It’s definitely not environmentally friendly, quiet, or modern, but for us (read: Chris), it’s an amazing little sleeper that is such a joy to drive.

It’s Chris’s pride, and Angie indulges him with weekend drives whenever we don’t have plans too far away from home. Chis is especially proud of the car since he put the motor in himself. It’s a 4th gen 3sgte with full bolt-ons a reworked 50mm ct15b turbo with a full 3in exhaust, among a few other things under the hood. Simply put, it’s a very fast engine, on a very light frame, and it’s totally different than anything you can get from a dealership. At least, not in a US dealership. This motor didn’t come standard in the States, though it would have been stock with the car in its native Japan (you could get the motor on the st205 gt-four Celica or the Caldina in the US).

Big kid in a candy store… He’s been waiting to do this a LONG time.

Once he was finished (editor’s note: the car is never “finished”, but for now we’re telling Angie it is -Chris) we took it to a local dyno tuner when they had a blood drive/charity day. For a discounted fee you could pull your car a few times to test what it has under the hood. And of course, show out to the other car owners around you. Although it was one of the few imports, it was still putting down some impressive numbers next to the other cars there considering power to weight. As it was sold, the “3sgte” had around 260 horsepower, but the final tally at the dyno was just over 330, so all that work certainly didn’t go to waste! (335whp @2550 lbs or so) and considering it’s a 20 year old car, it was definitely impressive enough to turn a few heads from the mostly domestic/muscle car crew that had amassed at the event.

Ultimately, the Celica is not practical, but that’s what a Sunday Driver should be. Something to forget the cares of the week and speed off into the countryside (minding local speed limits, of course). Plus the labor of love doing everything yourself just makes it so much better than just some shiny new sports car, there is a real pride in knowing all that hard work went into making a gorgeous and fast ride that is one of a kind and all your own.