The Butame

A true survivor.

1980 Toyota Cressida

I picked this up for $500 and it had been sitting in a yard for 15 years.  Got it running and driving with my friends from OSI x HI with a new fuel cell, vacuum hoses, battery and rebuilt brakes/master cylinder.  

Back taxes ended up being over $5k so I gave it to a friend who lowered it and has plans for a 1uz swap eventually.

The day I picked the car up and how it sat in front of my parents house.

I bought a Jeep fuel cell off of craigslist and strapped it into the trunk.  My friends Tommy (OSIxHI) and Noel helped me to get it running and to rebuild all of the brake calipers and the master cylinder.

Noel also had a decently successful YouTube channel at the time and he made a couple videos about getting the Cressida road worthy.

After we got the car running and stopping I had two things I wanted to get done.  Register it and Slam it on some deep old wheels.  This was a super low budget build so I got some 14x7j Hayashi Commands off of YAJ for like $200.  First things first I popped the faces out and flipped them in the barrel.  This is not the ideal for good fitment but it's a cheap solution haha.  I think I threw on some Laurel side markers as well which you'll see in photos below.

After this I decided to try and get the car register.  There used to be a law where if a car had not been registered for over a certain amount of years then all of the back taxes would be dropped as the car would fall out of their system and would be like its being registered for the first time.  So i went to the DMV pretty positive that i could change the title over to my name easily.  I walked up to the counter and asked to register the vehicle.  The worker informed me that just the week before the policy had changed and no cars can be exempt from back taxes.  I asked her how much it would be, she did a little bit of calculations and slapped over $5000 in my face.  I said thank you, grabbed my paperwork and left.  

Due to this no longer being an affordable car to register, I gave it up.  My friend Noel believed he may be able to find a way to register it without back taxes so I gave him the car.

Shortly after he had it in his possession he welded up some coilovers for it and lowered it a bit.  He had it on 15" Watanabes and fixed a fuel leak as well.  

I still wanted to see my final vision through at least so I bought tires for the commands and packed up all the little parts I had collected for it and went to Noel's shop.  Noel was cool with me throwing on my parts so I went over to his shop installed the commands, front lip, Vitaloni California mirrors, 280 OBA wood grain steering wheel and Wood automatic selector handle.  Drove the car a little ways down the road and did a little film photoshoot with it.

I took it back to his shop, removed all of my parts and never saw the car again.  

I think Noel still has it in his possession and last he told me he was planning to do a 1UZ swap in it, just like his 77' Toyota Celica.  

I would love to have another one eventually. Maybe when I have the space and time to build one correctly.