Project Snake Charmer - 1972 Celica with the heart of a 2015 Mustang
My Good friend Tony and I are building a Pro-Touring car out of my 1972 celica parts car. I am not sure if an import can be classed as a pro-touring car but that is the theme we are going for with the build.
This car was headed for the crusher before I brought it home. The car has been 2 years in the works. I probably have 400 plus hours of fabrication in it. This is our wide body 1972 Celica race car. Well at least it was a VERY rusted out Toyota Celica when it rolled into my shop, it was my parts car. This build was supposed to be a quick and dirty build to go hoon around in. We were going to throw in a high hp motor and see how long the little toyota rear diff would last. Well this project has gotten out of hand and over the last two years has slowly become a very modified and very radical build! Potentially one of the most unique 1972 Toyota Celicas you will come across!
Some back story: I was looking for parts for a different build about 15 years back at a local wrecker where I came across the shell of a car I had not seen before. Turns out I liked the shape of it and the badges said celica. So I spent 10 years looking for a 1971-1973 Celica. My dad called me up one day and said he had found a 1972 celica sitting in a town 20 minutes from my house. The car was not for sale but after a couple visits the owner decided to sell me the car for $900 bucks. I was going to restore this very rusty car. Then another member of the Winnipeg Sports Car Club emailed me a Kajiji add link for a 1973 Celica. It was sitting on a farm an hour out from me for $150. So Now I had 2 Celicas sitting in my garage and the $150 celica was in better shape. So I spent the last 5 years restoring the 1973 celica and my 1972 became a parts car.
About 2 years ago Tony picked up a completely totalled 2015 Mustang ecoboost. His plan was to put the 2.3 ecoboost into his fox body Mustang. I said "we should throw that 300hp motor into my parts car and take it auto crossing till the puny differential blew". "A cheap car to go do some Hooning in!" Surprisingly a few weeks later he said that sounds like a good idea. Tony is a Ford guy and not a fan of Toyota. So while we were fitting the motor in the car we knew the trans tunnel was going to have to be made from scratch to fit. The motor fit perfect after the tunnel was cut out. We sat there for about 20 min looking at the motor sitting in the engine bay of the celica. It really only needed engine mounts and a new drive shaft to go with the new trans tunnel to go racing. We said to each other "The easy way or Hard way?" well we chose the hard way. This ment getting a 50:50 weight balance which included setting the motor 18 inches back under the cowl. From there it got pretty crazy with a full scratch built chassis incorporating the rear independent sub frame from the 2015 mustang and a 1990 miata front sub frame. The mustang is 14 inches wider than the celica. I finally got the chance to try the quarter panel stretch I had seen done on some first gen Camaro's
The name "Snake Charmer" came about when we realized our power to weight goal for the car put us in Dodge Viper power to weight range.
Goals for the car:-2200lbs total weight-$10000K canadian dollars budget -completely new hand made chassis-set the motor 18 inches back over stock (just behind the strut towers, -install a 2015 mustang 2.3L EcoBoost and its 6 speed manual gear box-390 hp-then 500 hp-install a na miata front suspension/subframe-install 2015 mustang Independent rear suspension- full Metal Wide body!-Run it hard at autocross and time attack events!
I have the whole build is documented on my youtube channel: Dad's Toy Garage.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoyYP5fmRkgJLEAr8SSQyQQ
The Project Snake charmer build series:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...FL1E72bOL9n98l
Latest build video update:
https://youtu.be/82cSbEO5Mkk
and my 1972 Celica restoration:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...zZ8Ih7sTGGnR6Q
