Hello!, Newbie forum member saying hi :) Options

[Unicorn]

Hey all, I just joined the forum the other day and thought I would introduce myself. My name is Matt and I'm an Electronic Engineer from and living in Northern Ireland. Let me start off by saying that I do not yet own a Celica, I have joined here so that I can get to know some of the 6th gen community and because I am in the planning stages of a GT-Four build.

I've been planning this build since I was about 19 to be honest (am 24 now... been waiting a long time!) but I was at university (BEng Hons Electronics & Software) until May last year and for the past 18 months or so have been building my own business up from the part time job that it was throughout my studying days to a full time profession/career. So, there hasn't been a whole lot of spare cash or time going around as you can imagine! I hope that will change soon and that the investment will really start turning into profit in the next few months.

My background with cars is that my Father was a mechanic for most of his young life, and has been a motor vehicle lecturer at a local college (training both light and heavy vehicle mechanics) for the past 18 or so years. So naturally I have always been around cars, and he's taught me almost everything that I know about them. My own daily drive at the moment is a very sensible 2010 Renault Clio iMusic edition (1.5 Dci, factory stock) which I now drive after I wrecked my last Clio (2007 1.5 Dci Dynamique S, Induction kit, 120bhp remap) on Christmas Eve 2009 in bad weather - I braked/skidded behind a Civic Type-R performing an "emergency" stop because of an amber light in snowy weather and had to go onto the grass verge to avoid hitting the Honda, ending up nose first in a tree.

Before that I drove a 1.8 Focus which I really liked but had to get rid of due to endless electrical problems. The new Clio is all right. I know it's nothing special like some of the DD's that I have seen on here already, but it does the job as long as I keep the back seats out (I basically use it like a small van) and most importantly, with sensible driving I can get 55-60mpg out of it and it's cheap insurance, road tax etc. I'm a bit of a detailing fanatic and even though my car is nothing special, I like to keep it looking clean and polished at all times. I'll post some pics below in the Daily Drive/non 6Gen thread once I find them on my server

So anyway, don't mean to give you my life story or anything but that's a somewhat brief intro, and the car I have been planning to build all these years is a Black GT-Four ST205 with a 3SGTE engine. I'd like to build it as a track day/weekend car that's fun to drive on the track but also road legal for weekend use. I'm not going to start listing the specs or what I intend on putting in it etc because I know you guys have likely heard it all before! I will be sharing the project here on 6gc though, so you'll all be along for the ride and hopefully there to give me whatever advice or guidance I might need!

Pics of the old and new Daily Drive

This post has been edited by Unicorn: Sep 8, 2011 - 12:37 PM