Well after my Carlos Sainz was written off in Germany I decided to stay with Toyotas and especially the GT4. The insurance took a bit of time to sort out so in the meantime I decided to go for an ST165. I had actually always liked the ST165 since seeing one in it's very early rally days circa 1988.

I trawled the internet and eventually found a nice example on the findit website. I actually recommend anyone looking for an obscure sports car to check this site out - you might be surprised at the selection of cars available here !

I picked up the ST165 in May with MOT and Tax and some nice multi spoke wheels. The car was very sound and ran perfectly. I was very impressed by the level of equipment and interior. It feet very retro but in a luxurious way - hard to explain but I think ST165 owners get what I mean.

I drove the car home from Goole and set about enjoying my ownership experience. In the meantime I have done a fair bit of work on the car as follows ...

Tuning Wise

Profec A Boost controller.
New exhaust middle section after the old one fell off on the way to York. You should have seen my DIY 'get me home' repair - LOL.
Lag the chargecooler.
DIY cold air intake.
20 groove disks off my old Carlos Sainz.
DV26 dump valve off the Carlos Sainz.

Bodywise

Rear wheel arch repairs - this is a common area so I decided to give the car the full treatment.
Body kit removal and waxoyl.
New rear sill sections - made and fitted by a good old fashioned panel beater. Tthe old sills were OK but had started to corrode from the inside ! I thought these had to be replaced before they get any worse - I hate rust.
New driver side wing.
Front floor pan replacement - again my panel beating guy fabricated these. It seemed as though water had been getting inside perhaps from the sunroof drains and had corroded the floor from the inside around the bulkhead seam. Again this had to be fixed !
Full underseal treatment.

Here are some pictures ....

Much as I like the ST165 I had always planned to upgrade to something else. After much, and I mean much, deliberation I have decided to go for an ST205 WRC in Black. I had thought about another Carlos Sainz but 'been there, done that'. The Mitsubishi and Subaru options came up but in the end the Toyota GT4 won.

I have now bought an ST205 WRC, check out the details here.