
Roots in Racing

Fast forward to the last few years – I’m now in Charlotte, NC and retired. I’d wanted for quite some time to find another Corolla to build into a fun street car. But they are few and far between these days. Luckily, Bring-A-Trailer brought the car to me, so to speak. Mr. Angel Diaz out in Round Rock, TX had restored a 1973 TE21 (2 dr. Sedan) around 2010. By 2019 he decided it was time to sell it and I was the winning bidder. As you can see from the pictures Mr. Diaz took for the BAT listing, all the big bits had been done quite nicely – paint, drivetrain, interior. Mr. Diaz had pulled out the OEM 1600cc 2TC/4 speed and went back in with a freshly rebuilt early 80’s 1800cc 3TC/T50-5 speed. But quite a few details needed to be changed to suit my tastes. In the rest of the blog we’ll chronicle those changes. Huge thanks to my good friend John Kenney — he volunteered his time, truck and trailer to roll out to TX from NC with me and bring The Red Bee (Abeja Roja) back to Charlotte, where my LS3 powered Volvo 242 acquired a new “roomie”.


No North Carolina License Plate yet?
That picture was taken the day the car rolled out of the trailer 2 days after we picked it up in TX. Yup – NC plate acquired just a few days later. Still waiting on a NC title though…..damn Coronavirus….