Neo-Classic: A Turbo-Swapped ’71 Celica

We love classic cars. We love their engines, their styling, their smell – and their character. Whether you currently own a vintage car, are planning to buy one, or have just dreamed about it, I think we can all agree that the cars of yesterday offer something that you just can’t find in today’s high tech machines.

In the world of our car hobby, there are few things more rewarding then finding an old beat-up vehicle and breathing new life into it. It’s the kind of thing lots of car enthusiasts live for. Whether it’s some simple refreshing to get an old car back on the road, or tearing one down for a complete rebuild, a classic car represents a wealth of opportunities depending on your budget, spare time, and mechanical ability.

But as with any car project, there are some questions that need to be answered before the wrenches start turning. What do you want from your classic car? A factory restoration is the most traditional choice. It will probably be most beneficial to the car’s value, and there’s always something to be said for a period correct throwback to the way motoring was done in the past.

But if you go this route, there are going to be some drawbacks. Even with a full restoration, your old car will still drive like, well, an old car. Acceleration, braking, handling, fuel economy and reliability may seem very lacking, especially to someone who is used to driving newer, more technologically-advanced automobiles.

So in that case, you might instead to choose to completely modify your vintage car. Whether you’re driving on the street or race track, you can go for a modern engine swap, upgrade the suspension and install bigger brakes with large wheels and tires and so forth. If you do things right, you’ll have a classic car that drives like something a lot newer.

But then again, is the car really a classic at that point? It might look like one, but some might say that if you wanted the performance and reliability of a new car, you should have just gone and bought one. I love a thoroughly modernized classic, but I do agree that having all the high tech bits takes some of the adventure out of things.

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The challenge then, is to try and find the middle ground. A classic car that can be improved in the right areas without taking away all the stuff that made us fall in love with it in the first place. The 1971 Toyota Celica you see here is a perfect example of this.

The car is owned by Southern California’s Jorge Aguilera, and when I saw it at Toyotafest in Long Beach this year I fell in love with it. It was the complete package, and after a few seconds of surveying its eye-catching green bodywork and mechanical bits I knew we had a feature car on our hands. A call was made to Larry Chen and now we have the images you see here.

Jorge is part of a tight-knit group of SoCal Toyota enthusiasts, and he’s owned the Celica for seven years now. When he first brought the old Toyota home, his wife wasn’t too pleased (I think we’re all familiar with that), but in the time since, he’s created what is surely one of most impressive first generation Celicas this side of Tokyo.

The Celica was a big deal when it went on sale in the United States during 1971. It offered the scaled-down looks of a Camaro or Mustang, sports car moves and the fuel economy and reliability that Japanese imports were quickly becoming known for. It also turns out that these early model Celicas would be the best looking of the bunch – before ‘the man’ intervened with his 5mph crash laws and the gigantic bumpers that came with them.

In addition to having those great first year lines, Jorge also outfitted the body of his Celica with a few period correct modifications that make a big difference to the look. There’s a subtle front chin spoiler and a set of Japanese market fender mirrors…

… along with set of over fenders that give the svelte Celica just the right amount of 1970s toughness. Combine that with the paintwork done by Jorge’s close friend Sid and you’ve pretty much got the perfect exterior.

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But it’s not just the exterior that makes this car so good. In North America, the early Celicas were only offered with single overhead cam engines that, while decent for their time, paled in comparison to the more exotic DOHC engines available in Japan.

This wouldn’t be the last time American market cars got the short end of the stick when it came to engine choices, but no problem though because like many old school Toyota enthusiasts, Jorge swapped in a twin cam 18R-G motor that made the Daruma Celica such a hit in Japan.

But he didn’t stop there. For some extra power, he outfitted the 18-RG with a T3/T4 turbocharger with a custom piping and intercooler set-up. While this doesn’t make the Celica a wheel stander or tire destroyer, it’s still a huge improvement over what the car made from the factory.

But more importantly, I just think there’s something cool about popping the hood and seeing that old school twin cam engine with a snail attached to it. There are any number of modern Japanese powerplants Jorge could have gone with while looking for more power and reliability – but I very much like this combination. It looks like something you might have seen at at a tuning house back in the early ’80s.

The engine is mated to a five-speed transmission and to handle the additional power that the car is putting down, the rear differential has been upgraded to one from a ’79 Supra.

Inside the car, you’ll find the same great balance of classic style and functional upgrades – and that’s a good thing because first generation Celicas had interiors that looked just as cool as their bodies.

For the most part everything looks pretty original here, but Jorge has made a few changes…

… like installing a pair of bucket seats from an ’85 Supra that have been convincingly reupholstered to match the rest of the cockpit.

There are other little things like carbon fiber trim and extra gauges to keep an eye on the turbocharged engine…

… but by and large, that great nostalgic feel of a 1970s Japanese car has been kept intact.

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Finally, we have the wheel and tire set-up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a cool vintage car that’s been visually ruined by having a set of modern oversized wheels with low profile tires. It’s a look that can work sometimes, but it takes some effort.

Thankfully Jorge doesn’t have that problem, because he went with a very period-correct wheel choice. Those are RS Watanabes measuring 13″x8.5 in the front and 13″x9.5 in the rear.

Combine the timeless Watanabes and those flares with meaty 13″ tires and you’ve got a look that could’ve come straight from the grid at Fuji Speedway in the early ’70s.

As for future plans, Jorge is planning to go through the Celica’s suspension and also to eventually build a new motor for it.

Whatever he plans to do though, you can rest assured that the car will not stray from its perfect blend of old and new.

This Celica is not an exact recreation of something that rolled off the assembly line in 1971, nor is it a modern performance car wrapped in a vintage body. It’s somewhere right in the middle, and that’s what makes it so special.

Mike Garrett
Instagram: speedhunters_mike
mike@speedhunters.com

Photos by Larry Chen
Instagram: larry_chen_foto
larry@speedhunters.com

Jorge Aguilera’s 1971 Toyota Celica

Engine
18R-G DOHC swap, T3/T4 turbocharger with custom piping and front mount intercooler, Greddy BOV, 2.5″ exhaust

Driveline
Five-speed manual gearbox, ’79 Supra rear differential

Wheels/Tyres
RS Watanabe 13″x8.5 (front) 13″x9.5 (rear), 215/50/30 Sumitomo tires (front) , 235/45/13 Kumho tires (rear)

Exterior
Front chin spoiler, bolt-on over fenders, JDM fender mirrors, bodywork by Sid

Interior
Original ’71 Celica with ’85 Supra bucket seats, aftermarket steering wheel, Alpine audio equipment

HONDA CB550 BY RACCIA

Let’s face it: A 1970s Honda CB is a pretty easy bike to customize. It looks good straight out of the box, and custom parts are a dime-a-dozen. This CB550 from California-basedRaccia Motorcycles is something special though.

Raccia builds are inspired by the production racers of yesteryear, and this Honda is no exception. “This time round, the Honda RC181 was the source of my enlightenment,” says Raccia main man Mike LaFountain. “I’ve always had a schoolboy crush on the entire Honda RC line up, and the RC181 is absolute perfection.”

The CB550 was not intended to be a replica, though. (“That is a whole different animal.”) It’s LaFountain’s attempt to create something with a parallel beauty, using parts from Japanese production bikes and altering them to create a look reminiscent of the machines that tore around racetracks forty years ago.

The modifications are extensive, starting with the frame: Only a third of the original CB550 metallurgy remains. LaFountain has reverse-engineered a double-cradle race frame to fit the Honda engine and ergonomics. (Given the huge amount of work involved, he’s replicating the custom frame and offering a handful for sale.)

The motor has been heavily upgraded. It’s now running a performance cam, oversized pistons, and a ported and polished cylinder head. The wheels are 18” Excel high shouldered aluminum rims, shod with Avon tires.

The front end is from a CB750, heavily modified, and matched to Works Performance shocks at the rear. The exquisite rear drum brake started life as a CB77 fitment, but like just about everything else on this machine, it’s also been reworked. The front brake is from a Suzuki GT750.

The beautifully-painted tank is not a Honda item, either—it’s from a Kawasaki KZ1000R. It’s a mix-and-match approach, but due to LaFountain’s unerring eye, it all works. He simply enjoys re-engineering old components and unlocking their potential.

“People sometimes ask me, ‘Why don’t you put an engine in a featherbed, or buy an alloy Manx tank? That would make a sweet bike.’ And they’re right,” he says. “But it’s been done.”

“I find my zen in the art of motorcycle building by creating something unique.”

Photography by Gustavo Pena. Visit the Raccia Motorcycles website for more of Mike LaFountain’s work, or check our profile of his amazing Triumph TR6 Trophy custom.

from BIKEEXIF

HARLEY SPORTSTER BY ASTERISK

By David Edwards—There may be better cures for jetlag…then again, maybe not. Hideki Hoshikawa had flown over from Japan with his latest build in the airplane’s cargo bay, clearing customs in Los Angeles just in time for the big L.A. Calendar Bike Show, where the Sportster-based “Avanzare” nabbed Best of Show honors and the AFT Visionary award. Next day, the bike was in the photo studio for a calendar shoot, with two leggy bikini models draped all over it. Hoshikawa was tired but hardly complaining.

Since 2004 Hoshikawa, 37, has run Asterisk Custom Cycles, a small three-person operation in northern Japan specializing in bare-bones Shovelhead-powered specials. When a customer came in requesting a traditionally styled Evo Sportster café racer, Hoshikawa convinced the client to step things up several notches. “I was not interesting in mimicking an old café racer,” he says, “I wanted to produce a modern café racer.”

Mission more than accomplished—in fact, I’d rank Avanzare (Italian for “progress”) as easily the most impressive custom I’ve seen in the past year. First order of business was to bring frame geometry and suspension up to current standards. Off came the steel twin-shock swingarm, replaced with a braced aluminum monoshock job inspired by Honda’s NSR500 Grand Prix racer. Öhlins supplied the damper and the inverted fork, the latter grasped by a custom billet triple-clamp, one of the project’s few parts not crafted in-house. All done, rake was tightened up from the stocker’s lazy 29 degrees to a much more sporting 24.

Hoshikawa broke out the aluminum tubing and fired up his welder again to create the rear subframe, which serves as a mounting point for the alloy tailsection, the dirtbike-style Pro Circuit muffler and a small catch tank for the top-end oil breathers. The main oil supply is housed in an Asterisk-built aluminum chin spoiler, its down-low location freeing up space amidships which allowed the wasp-waisted look Hoshikawa was after. The artfully arching fuel tank is steel, so severely pinched at the rear that it is barely wider than the frame’s backbone.

About 100 horses make their way through Hoshikawa’s snaky 2-into-1 stainless-steel exhaust system, a masterwork of bends and welds. This is a showbike that also knows how to go—thankfully a combination we’re seeing more of these days.

I ask Hoshikawa if there’s anything he would do differently on Avanzare. Except for a rethink of the tiny, lightweight battery that has given problems, he can’t come up with a thing. Me neither.

For more on Avanzare and builder Hideki Hoshikawa, check out the cover story in the new issue ofBikeCraft magazine, on newsstands later this month. Visit BikeCraft’s Facebook page for additional story previews.

Photography by Vibe Magazine.

from BIKEEXIF

ICON 1000 Quartermaster

Custom motorcycles have always been part of Icon’s company culture—and they do all the work in-house. But this is the first Icon 1000 bike to be commissioned by a client. The commission came from Ural, and the machine is called the Quartermaster. Based on the Ural Solo sT, it’s a bike designed to endure the ‘End of Days.’

Inspired by rugged Soviet Navy ships, this Ural has been extensively modified to fit the vision of Icon’s creative director Kurt Walter. “I wanted to highlight that Russian military theme, but with a twist. Hence the nautical approach in both color and markings,” he says.

As this video shows, the Ural is a pretty good match for Icon’s post-apocalytptic vision: “Simplicity is paramount to the survival of any mechanism in arduous environments,” says Walter. “So I’ve always preferred air-cooled singles or twins.” Icon started work by giving the frame an oversized main spar and a higher-clearance subframe, adding to the Ural’s bullish stance. The rest of the build reflects the Icon 1000 mission brief: Vintage design cues, top-shelf materials and components, and discreet modern technology.

A large-capacity fuel tank and hand-formed fenders prepare the Quartermaster for the rigors of an uncertain future. When the asphalt crumbles, enduro bars, a skid plate and raised foot controls help keep the rider on track.

Component upgrades come from PIAA and Progressive Suspension. “I like to upgrade suspension to as much travel as the geometry will take, and as stiff as my kidneys will endure!” says Walter. The Ural is also running a Supertrapp exhaust system and Continental tires: (“TKC-80s have a chunky cross-section that works well on different terrain.”)

The stock Ural is as rugged as they come, a time-proven design that has been refined over decades. But with the Quartermaster, it’s been readied for an even tougher future. Head over to the Icon 1000website for more images—and a first view of the latest Icon 1000 motorcycle gear.

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GILERA MILANO TARANTO

Before and after WWII, Italy was a haven for street racing. One of those races was the Milano Taranto, reportedly the longest of all the street races and with the added danger of nighttime running. The only entry requirement was a driver’s license and a motorcycle ready to race: a far cry from today’s heavily regulated competitions.

Gilera motorcycles were favored by many riders in those days, and in 1956 the final Milano Taranto was won by Pietro Carissoni in a Gilera 500 Saturno. The beautiful machine we’re looking at here is a smaller racer from the same year, a ‘Milano Taranto’ spec version of the Gilera 175.

It was restored by Hugo Gallina of Vintage Italian Restoration: “Back in 1958, my father owned a 175 Super Sport,” says Hugo. “The same basic motorcycle, but a street version. It was the first bike I sat on as a young kid—my father lifted me from the floor and sat me on top of the tank, and I remember burning my right foot with the exhaust header!”

Hugo never forgot that bike, and now, more than 50 years later, he has his own Gilera 175. It took a few years to restore it, but as these images show, it was worth the effort.

The perfect vintage steed for a leisurely weekend ride in the country, don’t you think?

Images courtesy of Jose Gallina.

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MOTOHANGAR YAMAHA SR500

Every now and then, a bike comes along that captures the state of the neo-custom scene right at this moment in time. This is one of those bikes, from the Virginia-based workshop Motohangar. It’s not a big-budget build and it’s not a fire-breathing monster, but it’s exactly the kind of bike that is attracting legions of younger riders back into the motorcycling scene.

The starting point was a 1979 Yamaha SR500, a long-time staple of the Japanese custom scene. Old SRs are increasingly popular in the US, and good examples are affordable. (Yamaha has noticed this, apparently, and may export the latest SR400 to the States.)

“This wasn’t a commissioned build,” says Motohangar’s Pat Jones. “The bike’s more for our own personal use, and to showcase our design aesthetic.” It’s an attractive aesthetic: bare metal bodywork, a hand-made leather seat and a low-profile tail unit.

The SR400 has been thoroughly overhauled throughout. It’s sitting a little lower than stock at the front, and Motohangar have fitted new rear shocks to tighten up the handling.

Other upgrades include stainless steel braided brake lines and a vintage headlight and taillight, both modified to accept modern bulbs. The wiring has been stripped to the bare minimum, and the original wheels have been refurbished and powdercoated.

The driving force behind this build was Motohangar’s latest cohort, Johnny Brindley. (Hence the ‘B’ in the hand-painted ‘MH500B’ nomenclature on the tank.) “He’s a good friend who was looking to learn about bikes and needed a place to work on them,” says Pat. “He’s since become a part of Motohangar, and adds to a lot of our design ideas.”

To clean up the front end, the bar-mounted electric controls—including the key switch—have been relocated to under the seat. The engine has been treated to K&N filtration and a custom header hooked up to a period Yoshimura silencer. (“They’re from an 80s sport system,” says Pat. “This one is more commonly found on the DOHC Honda 750s and other similar bikes from that era.”)

It’s a great showcase for Motohangar’s work—a rideable and reliable custom that also looks like a million dollars. Check out our coverage of previous Motohangar bikes, and follow the company’s news via their Facebook page.

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M&M CUSTOMS HONDA CB550

It’s getting harder and harder to impress with a Honda CB custom these days. But this very sharp 1974 CB550, from the Kentucky shop M&M Customs, proves there’s still life in the old dog.

M&M (not to be confused with the Japanese shop with a similar name) is run by Mike McFadden. Like all the best custom builders, Mike is a detail freak—and his cafe racer, nicknamed ‘El Dora,’ is a fine showcase for his skills.

Mike spotted the Honda in his local classifieds, offered for sale by a teenager who’d been using the machine as a vintage motocrosser. The bike checked out fine, so Mike handed over the cash and started work.

The first step was a complete tear-down. Mike does everything himself, from engine rebuilding to paint work, and he decided to make this custom a “vintage racer with a cafe influence.” To boost power, Mike installed Keihin CR carburetors and coils and ignition from Dyna. The pipes were also made in his shop, by blending the stock head pipes together to form a 2-into-1 setup on both sides.

Mike replaced the worn-out rear shocks with Hagons, and fitted Loaded Gun rearsets to custom mounts. Then he cut off the entire rear subframe, and changed the lines of the bottom tubes to give a more modern-looking aesthetic.

A Dunstall-style tank adds a retro vibe, matched to a seat and tail section from Dime City Cycles that also hides the battery and a lot of the wiring. Some fettling was required to line up the tail section with the new tank, so Mike modified the tail to his liking.

“The whole thing was flowing well and I just couldn’t bring myself to muck up the lines with a bolt on tail lamp,” he says. “Thus the ‘Urinal Trap’ brake lamp was born. If you look at it (below) you can see where the idea came from…”

And the #18? It’s in support of Mike’s relative Nick McFadden, an up-and-coming 15-year-old who has just won the 2012 WERA 600cc Superstock National Challenge Championship. I have a feeling that we’ll be hearing more of the McFadden family in the years to come.

Head over to the M&M Customs website to see more of Mike’s super-stylish builds.

from BIKEEXIF