I replaced it with a UCF11 Toyota Celsior, built in 1990, it's a nice car but for all the gizmo's it has it will cost me a small fortune to keep up to scratch.
It was a "meet in the middle" car for me and my girlfriend. She owns a MY98 WRX, its been a pretty good car for her, a lot better than the last car she owned! and I like it as it has all the practicality of a nice daily driven hatch/wagon (what ever they class it as) but it has something to offer the auto enthusiast, it has balls! you can tromp the throttle and hook it right from a stand still and have all 4 wheels spinning like a dreidel, my problem was we needed a tow car as we had inherited a caravan that we both wanted to use, her car not having the towing capacity and my little corolla barley able to pull a full car load of people, so it would have no hope in hell of doing 8 hours with a caravan attached, and should never even be considered to be capable of doing so.
so the ol ball and chain decided she wanted a new car, as I didn't really want to give up the Corolla, she started looking at her finances and realised she could push her budget to as high as $18k so we set out and started looking at suitable cars for the job at hand, it not only had to tow, but be a comfortable daily driven car, so that pushed out all the major 4x4's (much to my disappointment), we finally found something she liked! A Nissan X-Trail, a small 4x4 with a good towing capacity that she seemed to enjoy driving, the only problem was that all the cheap ones we saw had high k's, shitty interiors, a major service due or something major like 4 new tires and a tow kit needing to be fitted.
after a break from searching hoping a cheap good example would pop up, I realised I was getting pretty bored with my same little car, I rarely drive more than 100k's a week and I just never got the opportunity to really drive it the way I wanted to, so the short drive to work never really got me excited enough to consider keeping the car for another year, so I put it forward to my girlfriend that she keep her WRX and I look for a new car, something that I want to drive, something that would suit my needs of a very short drive to work and still give me the satisfaction of knowing I'm driving something special.
I looked around on the web for fast cars that have a towing capacity large enough, and also something that wouldn't be a car that is capable of towing but not ever built to do so, rather a car that was built with towing in mind, I almost gave up when I couldn't find anything I liked enough to consider, when I stumbled upon a Toyota Celsior, I had very limited knowledge of the car, it was something I would have never been interested in previously as it wasn't a pocket rocket nor was it turbo charged, it was a heavy luxo barge!
having owned a luxury car before it was always something I enjoyed and wanted to keep high on the preference list when considering new cars, it just worked out differently with my choices and desires at the time, so never really went back to the luxo cars, I then noticed this was not just a luxury car but it was a luxury car fit for a king! the features they have are truly amazing, astonishing even! Rear seat massager, air suspension, air purifier, heated rear seats just to name a few, I was gop smacked to find out how cheap these engineering marvels where being sold for.
so I had decided on my future car, all I had to do now was find one, easier said than done it turns out, at the time I was looking I found 4 for sale on the main car websites, 1 for sale through the good old trading post, and another through a random google search, this was only 6 cars, I only had 6 cars to choose from, this was something I was not looking forward to, after 2 phone calls 2 had already been eliminated, I then eliminated another from the modifications and other issues with the way the seller seemed to shoot himself in the foot with his description of his car, I then decided to go and see 2 different extremes, a clearly bad example and an advertised high priced perfect example, after taking a test drive in the bad example I had decided I definitely want one, as even in a horrible shit example of a car I was still hugely impressed with the power, ride and features of the car, I then went to have a look at the so called "best example in Australia" I thought if it truly was a perfect example I would be more than happy to pay the hugely inflated price of more than twice the price of the shit example at $16,000!!! but when I got there my years of learning from my old man about automotive paint imperfection lead me to piece together a story hidden behind a glossy coat of paint, bog shrinkage in the pillars, colours ever so slightly not matching from front to back, so I had already decided it was not to be, but I still took it for a test drive to see how much they varied in performance and ride quality, and I was shocked to see that even the performance was down on the last Celsior, and I instantly noticed the suspension was way to stiff to be air suspension, when I asked I was told that it was only the UCF21 that came with air suspension, and he also explained that he had replaced the original suspension with high quality coil overs, he obviously took me for a fool, as cars and modifications aren't exactly a new thing to me...
so 5 Celsiors had been eliminated out of 6, and after a phone call the sixth had already been sold months before I had even started looking, it was a huge disappointment, until my girlfriend put the words "Celsior for sale" in google, only to come up with a result from a forum that I had never herd of before, it looked like a clean example, had been owned by an elderly gentleman, and regularly serviced by a Toyota dealership, and to make things even more perfect it was the cheapest one I had seen at only $6,000 with 12 months reg and a road worthy certificate!!! I couldn't pick up the phone fast enough! I was forced to wait until the weekend before I could go and see it in person, when I got there I was so pumped and ready to deal there and then, it was filthy! crap all over the interior, dirt covering the exterior, but everything worked! It had 4 brand new tires! It drove fantastically, the paint wasn't perfect but it also wasn't hiding any major accidents either, the biggest damage to the car was a dint in the drivers door and a horrible clear coat scuff mark over the boot where someone had obviously dragged a fuel hose across, but with a proper cut and polish it come up brand new! I bought it there and then, and while the son of the man selling it organised a road worthy I organised the cash, and within 2 weeks of impatiently waiting for the roadworthy to be completed I finally had my New Celsior!
Top of the range, with all the added factory features, it took me over 3 days to work out what everything did! I was happy as pig in shit, this is the photo from the add I purchased it from.
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