Toyota Stalking, er...um, SPOTTING with Charlie™ (Cars, vans, SUVs, Lexus, Scion, and brochures)!

Its funny too because the properties around me make me look like a Bullseye of a dart board. My neighbors in front and behind are hundreds of acres.

 

DAMN! Colorado is turning into California in more ways than one...

 

Wow!

 

California is good for one thing though, and that's rust-free vintage Yotas!

http://davidsclassiccars.com/toyota...r-5-5-speed-manual-4-cylinder-no-reserve.html

 

The interior is in rough shape due to years of exposure to the desert sun, and it's apparently not running due to a bad fuel pump, but look how clean that body is!

 

And then look at this one!



http://classiccardb.com/toyota/601480-toyota-camry-1-family-owned-time-capsule-serviced-rust-free-california-survivor.html

 

You could probably get more for your GMC Sierra than you paid for it!

 

I had a friend back in the early 90s that had a dark blue one, fun car.

 

There's a dark blue 1985 Camry in here somewhere that I photographed back in 2018 when I was working at that shitty detail shop...

 

We lived in Northern Virginia from July 2002 to July 2005, when my dad was going for his master's degree (paid for by the US Navy) and then working at the Pentagon; Specifically, it was in Fairfax County, and my parents bought a house when they were still somewhat affordable and then sold it for a huge profit...

That's a different story though; When we moved back to Virginia in 2002, I was at the end of middle school (8th grade in Virginia). I was just entering the 8th grade when we moved to Virginia, and I'd just finished my sophomore year of high school when we moved to Pennsylvania in 2005...

Please scroll down to read the story of a middle school crush and a well-preserved 20-year old Camry...

 

There was this beautiful girl who I met in about November 2002, not long after I started 8th grade; She was of mixed ethnicities, with a black father and a Dominican mother, and I thought she was the prettiest thing ever. I was born in March 1989, and she was born in June 1989, so we were both 13 when we met; She was HOT, and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't find myself sneaking glances at her boobs and rear end from time to time (again, we were teenagers, so cut me some slack), but what drew me to her beyond her good looks was her kindness. I was the weird new kid who was a target for bullies due to autism-related quirks, and she never showed me anything but kindness. Some of her friends didn't like me too much, and I'm sure that before 9th grade she figured out I had the hots for her, but she always showed me kindness that other classmates did not...

 

I like it.

 

Anyway, this thread is about old Toyota cars and not the teenage romantic interests of yours truly, so we will get to the cars; Keep in mind that this was in 2002-2005, so most of these vehicles were fairly new at the time...

This girl's mom had a goldish beige 1997 Toyota Camry LE that was mechanically sound but by the time we moved in 2005 was looking pretty beat up; Dad had a grayish silver 1983 Toyota Camry that was basically a time warp...

The car was 100% stock, right down to the factory analog dial-tuned AM/FM radio, and aside from normal cosmetic blemishes was in above average condition for its age (19 years old when we moved to Virginia and 22 when we moved away); The car had A/C that according to my crush worked great (this was Northern Virginia, and A/C was basically obligatory), but what I honestly couldn't understand is why her dad didn't put a modern radio with a CD player in it. Her mom's 1997 Camry had the factory cassette player, but no CD player; Her dad worked for Lockheed Martin if I remember correctly, and I don't know what he did there, but while they weren't loaded they weren't poor, either.

My relationship with this girl never extended beyond seeing each other at school; I never went to her house, or vice versa. We had each other's phone numbers, and we were briefly friends on Facebook maybe a decade ago, but I haven't actually seen her since June 2005. She is married with a kid now, and apparently doing quite well for herself...

Anyway, dad also had a late 1990s Mercury Villager minivan that he picked her up from school in a couple of times. Again, this was 2003-2004, so the van wasn't that old; By comparison, my dad was probably making more than hers, but still driving a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder, so I never use vehicles to judge someone's wealth or economic background.

I have a friend who's a multimillionaire, but her daily driver is a 2009 Honda Element that she bought used, and I know plenty of people who are driving cars that they really can't afford; The aforementioned millionaire friend and her family have many very nice vehicles, including a 2016 Tundra 1694 that I have posted photos of on TW, but the Element is reliable and suits her lifestyle perfectly. What makes me laugh is when I see a Maserati Ghibli parked in the driveway of a modest townhouse, or a late model Lexus in the parking lot of a dumpy apartment complex!

 

In about the spring of 2003, this girl I had a crush on told me that her dad had bought a new Escalade; All she would tell me was that it was new, so I'm assuming it was a 2003...

I never saw her get picked up from school in it; It was always mom in the gold 1997 Camry, or dad in the silver 1983 Camry (and on at least two occasions the aforementioned Mercury Villager). She insisted her dad had an Escalade and I had no reason not to believe her, but I never saw the Escalade.

The all-new Nissan Altima, available for the first time with V6 power, was released the year I met this girl; In 2003, this girl's dream car was a "2002 V6 Altima with a manual transmission and a Bose stereo"...

I think another thing that attracted me to this girl was her surprisingly impressive knowledge of cars; She was also a straight-A student, so she definitely wasn't stupid, and as stated above I am pretty sure she figured out I had the hots for her before the end of 2003 (by which time we were both freshmen in high school).

 

@ColoradoTJ

When I was in middle school and the first years of high school (8th, 9th, and 10th grade in Virginia, where we were living at the time), there was this girl in my class who I had a huge crush on; Her mom had a 1997 Toyota Camry LE with a very distinct personalized vanity plate...

I am not going to reveal the plate here (or the VIN, at least not publicly), but I remembered it and I punched it into Carfax for grins to see what would happen; To my absolute amazement, it came back to the very Camry in question...

I haven't seen the girl I had a crush on, or her mom's car for that matter, since about June 2005; The trail goes cold at the end of June 2006...



The car is shown to have a clean title; In my experience, when a vehicle so much as ends up in a junkyard, it shows up on the Carfax even if it wasn't written off by an insurance company. My question for the people of TW is...

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THIS CAR?!?!

 

My friend's parents bought the car used in 2002 (not long before my parents and I moved to Virginia), and were the 3rd owners...

Also, I actually remember the damage from incredibly minor accident; The hood was ever so slightly bent, but they did get it to latch and I don't think they ever bothered to fix it...

 

As you can see, they put almost 120K miles on it between 2002 and 2006; It passed an emissions test in June 2006, and then for some strange reason it shows a loan or lien against the car two weeks later, at which point the trail goes cold...

 

I think this is the Universe's way of telling you to stop stalking this chick's mom.