Ariel's Story - A tale of a Utah Corolla by ariel_86

7 minute(s) of a 178 minute read

9-11-2014

I like it too. I think I'll put Jesus and the hula girl in my dd Honda Accord. There just isn't a good place to put them inside the Corolla :/

As you can see from the pictures, Ariel was in desperate need of a makeover. Some fresh paint and a little bit of bodywork would change the look and feel of the car. I’m not one to typically get hung up about how a car looks, but I was tired of how crappy Ariel looked and the teasing and joking from everyone about how crappy it looks. My birthday was coming up and so is a local J-tin carshow a friend is hosting, so I put together a plan for a makeover.

First things first, the car had to be prepped. That meant sanding, something that wasn’t done when my dad painted it for me back in 2008. I felt confident that I could handle sanding the car, so I borrowed an orbital sander, bought a bunch of sand paper, and went to town. I did remove a lot of exterior bits first.

First night of sanding using some 100 grit paper.

Getting the OEM “GTS TwinCam 16” stickers off the door was very difficult.

Took off the front bumper and did some more sanding the next night.

Took off the rear bumper and decided to tackle some rust spots in the trunk as well.

I didn’t notice it immediately when I took off the rear bumper, but I did have a hole to deal with behind the rear bumper.

At least it isn’t anyplace important, structurally, and is well hidden behind the bumper. And that is the worst area of rust on the whole car, surprisingly. Not too shabby, imho.

After spending a week or two sanding the car, it was ready to be delivered to my dad to finish the prep work and paint it. Since I had done a large amount of the prep work I wasn’t worried about letting my dad paint it again. Plus, he agreed to buy the paint as a birthday present for me. My dad’s pretty awesome.

Bit of wet sanding after being masked.

Primer sprayed and first shots of black for the door trim and bumper pieces!

I wet sanded the whole car that evening and left my dad in charge of painting the car over the weekend. I was anxious to see how it would turn out but wouldn’t know for sure since I had to work all that weekend.

Even though I had committed to painting the car back in August, I hadn’t fully decided on a color scheme until I delivered the car to my dad. I went back and forth on a few ideas, but finally decided on Satin Black for the plastic pieces (front & rear bumpers and door moldings) and the original Bright Red the car was painted in 1985 (color code 3E6). Dad purchased a single-stage paint from a local supplier that was able to replicate the original color. Spray paint was used for the plastics and they turned out well.

Anyway, here are shots of the car. She’s so shiny!

I am very pleased with this paint job! It isn’t perfect, far from it, but this is the best Ariel has looked the whole time we’ve been together. I’m so excited for the Salt City Tinner’s Meet & Car Show Saturday! I can’t wait to show it off! I’ve fallen in love with her all over again now that she’s shiny & pretty (gosh, that sounds so superficial!)! I’ll try to get pics of the other cars at the Tinner’s show.

I love how she looks on those Celica Supra wheels!!