My daughter (she's 21) crasher her car the day after Thanksgiving, a 2007 Toyota Solara. The wrecking yard was going to give us about $300 for it. By Sunday I bought her another 2007 Toyota Blue Solara (yes crazy fast). My brother offered to come get the black one and store it up in East Texas for a "parts car". Before it left for East Texas we swapped some bits off the Black one to the Blue one (wheels, battery, seats, other minor bits).
If that doesn't sound crazy enough, my brothers long, long time friend that is also a body & paint guy proclaimed "this car is fixable". After about $1,500 in yard & new parts its all fixed up. No warning lights & ABS Airbag back in working order too. He is the guy that fixed up & painted the B-44's battery cover.
Before it was crashed I put this into it over last summer: Top/Liner, timing belt/water pump kit, all motor mounts, struts all around, rack and pinion, both CV axels, tie rods/linkages/rubber bits for sway bars and other minor bits. The right strut had to be replaced again to the hit.
Here is a before & after photo.... sometimes is not what you know but who you know! They are going to put it up for sale after a few more tweaks and we'll split what we get for it. Likely wait for it to warm up too, since we'll likely get more for a convertible in warm weather.
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Wow!
What a transformation.
It's great to have friends with skills.
Are you going to sell it or keep it?
It surely is a unexpected transformation and to think I was going to take $300 for it so I could stop the tow yard fees!
Yes, it will be put up for sale soon-ish and the proceeds will be split between Nate (my brother), Chad (friend/body guy) and me (well my daughter). I am hoping the part my daughter gets will help cover most of a new top on her "new" blue 2007 Solara SLE. The top alone comes in around 5k, installed. Then she needs around another 5k for a suspension refresh. Which we did both of these jobs in the Black Solara (top/suspension).
She just got the timing belt/water pump, water hoses done on the blue Solara - which is rather important with this Toyota v6 engine, as it is a interference engine - which means if you let the timing belt break, you trash the engine. So that is no bueno!
Remarkable what the right people can do with a wreck.