little red driving hood.

The underestimated autocross beast.

colors back then were simple. red white yellow green. no cosmic pearl metallic off eggshell white

Introduced in the US back when VCRs were dope, Starwars and Jaws were taking over the box office; the time that the Toyota starlet (KP61) rose from the east as an answer to the first oil crisis.

illusion of a big car. lol look at that backseat.

Little did people know that this boxy hatch is a factory equipped RWD car. Then after Toyota decided that it’s successors to be FWD (Toyota FX)

Who would have thought that this fuel savvy hatch could be transformed into a track junkie’s project. RWD you say? slap a 4AGE, F20c and call it a day.

There are still a couple of hard core KP60-62 enthusiasts that stay grounded with the roots when it comes to modifying their Starlets, simply lowered, ITBs and Watanabes or SSRs.

Exhibit A.

slammed...classic.

Exhibit B.

It would be rare to find a mint or reconditioned KP61 or KP62 since they were only sold between 81-84.  Most of them are either old rusting in a junk yard, some old man’s barn or probably still in some dad’s garage on jack stands working on it as a long term project.

Race bred or street tuned, these little monsters, though brought to the US as an economy car, stamped its image as one of the sought after classic Toyota chasis till today. If you’re in the market for something to play with, running around cones or maybe something to just simply restore, add this on your Craigslist search list of miatas and mini coopers. who knows, maybe one of the few lucky ones finding one. 😉

Stay Tuned,

-MARK-

mark@maydaygarage.com

P.S. Here are some fun videos i found on youtube. Listen to the beautiful roar of the  4AG-E swap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6PdQzbzSmg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1lVcGM4PiA