Well, presentation ? Options

[glenn]

I don't know if people usally make presentations here but well.., can be nice I guess, and if people don't care they can just skip reading it

I am a swedish guy, 37yo (how the HELL did that happen, I still feel like 20), I live with my girlfriend north of stockholm and work with *IX system administration (mainly linux nowadays, used to be Solaris).

I been working with boats and cars long time ago, but the last 15-20 years cars been just a hobby.

I have had many cars during the years, of different makers, a lot of SAABs (9000 is my fauvorite but 900 and 9-5 too), honda, mazda, mercedes..
But celicas have always had a special place, actually I was very close to buy a Celica mk1 as my first car, but for some reasons it didn't happen and instead I bought a early SAAB 900 turbo back then.

2000 I wanted to try a car with 4wd and after some research I bought myself a celica GT-Four '88, a ST165 ofcourse. It was a very nice car that
I liked very much, but even if it looked great on the outside and the engine was nice it had several problems, CVT boots, leaking steering servo,
rust under, rusty fuel and brake lines..

Now it was 2002 and I started to search for a ST185, and weas looking at many, both normal and Carlos Sainz limited editions, but they where either too expensive
or just had problems with stuff.

At this point the ST205 was extremly rare here, I heard that toyota sweden sold like 10 of them in sweden 1995-1996, with a extreme price. and
there was no swedish member of the toyota club that even had one.

So when I saw an ad for a ST205 I thought it was very cool, and since it was a company I called them and asked if I could come and look at it,
sure, so I went 200km to look at it and take a test drive.. BAD idea.

The car was in great shape, it was just imported from germany and only had one owner there, a company that had done all service on it
and took very good care about it, the body and paint was really perfect, it looked like a new car, and the price tag was.. like over three times
the price of a ST185.. but I really loved the car, it was so different from ST165 and ST185 (that are pretty similar to drive), it had such
a nice engine, the brakes where so powerful, it handled really well and it was so beautiful

I went home and thinked and thinked, and emailed with the seller, and well, I just had to buy it.. at this point I had pretty good economy, no loans
and didnt live with anyone, life was in short much easier ..so I decided to trade in my ST165, take all my savings and take a small loan to
buy the car, I dealed with the seller that I was going to pick it up a sunday and took the monday off so I could play with it (many people, including
my girlfriend back then, though this was a very stupid thing to do..) ..And I did, I was driving the car around the whole day at monday, with
a very big smile on my lips

I used it as a daily driver the first three years, and unfortunatly I was driving it even in the winters, dont take me wrong, it is a GREAT car
in the winters, but it really wears on the car, after that its not as perfect anymore, but well, now its a 16 years old car too.

Well, life goes on and I moved into a apartment in the city with my gf, the Celica had to be put away in a garage out of town, so I had to take the
subway to pick it up when i wanted to use it.. that SUCKED..It was also expensive and people where walking too close to the car and one
day someone even had nudged it with another white car, so I have a dent and scratches in the front corner.

Anyway, me and gf bought a house late 2011, and moved into it january 2012, not the ST205 have a large garage (unfortunatly behind a lot of crap right now, but i am sorting it out )
and now I really needed a daily driver, since both me and gf needed cars to go to work. we alreadu had a '99 SAAB 9-5 so I was thinking of buying a more
fun car for me, but not as expensive to drive as the ST205.

I was looking at ST162, ST182.. but never found any nice one.. then I found a AT200 (was never sold in sweden, we only had the GT here, with 175hp) that was really rusty, but cheap,
I nearly bought it but decided not to, and then.. suddenly I found a nice cheap ST202, it looked ok but had some small problems, and it was fairly cheap, the insurance
was not as cheap as the AT200 but in par with the SAAB.

I was really surprised when i was driving it, I thought it was going to be a big difference between the ST202 and ST205 but the ST202 is a really nice car to drive, ok it missing
nearly 70hp, but still feels sporty, and the handling is great, now the swedish sold ST202 have superstrut just like the GT-Four so it might not be a big surprise but still,
so much car for the money.

So now I have both a 175hp Celica GT '94 and a 242hp Celica GT-Four '96. ..And ofcourse the trusty SAAB 9-5 that my gf drives every day, and that we use if we going on long trips.


..Well, that about my cars and my Celicas ..My interests except from cars is motorcycles is computers (mainly Amiga and *IX), electronics.
I also love military airplanes and did my military service as a aircraft mechanic (SAAB 37 Viggen) 1993-1994.
I used to read a lot, both books and comics, but not as much anymore, I watch a lot of movies. (prefere action and comedy)
And as I said earlier I just bought a house togethler with my gf, and that is going to take some time, it is built in the seventies..

Hmm, well, thats me I guess.. any questions.. well just ask