Heightened Reality in Restoring a Celica

Heightened Reality and the Celica

I have discoursed on the philosophy of ‘Heightened Reality’ and how it guides your car restoration or improvement elsewhere in the forum. I wrote that Heightened Reality is giving you more of what you already have. Also that if the factory wanted to do it, but chickened out because it would cost a couple of cents extra per part, you can do it yourself.

Here are a couple of specific examples that may serve as more guidance.

My wife’s RA40 Celica Liftback came with factory air-conditioning, which was overhauled and worked well. In our foraging expeditions to the wreckers’, I had seen that the RA40 Coupes were a lower-spec model than the Liftbacks. They had plastic instead of vinyl side arm-rest panels in the rear; radio instead of radio-tape deck; and no air-conditioning. Quel horreur!

But the Coupes had an extra parcel shelf under the dashboard on the passenger side, which the Liftback didn’t have on account of its air-conditioning assembly. They also had a little parcel tray that went where the Liftback’s (separate) tape deck would have gone. I bought both from the wreckers. Why?

I had already installed a combined radio-tape deck where the factory radio went in the dashboard. This freed the space for the storage cubbyhole that would have been taken up by a useless (not working) original tape deck. Bonus storage!

I found that the extra parcel shelf had score marks on the underside, which when cut would have removed part of the back of the tray. This enabled it to fit around the air-conditioner assembly. The factory could have supplied it, but chose not to, just to save a few cents per car. Still more bonus storage!

What compromises did the factory build into your car which you don’t have to put up with? Some markets got all the goodies, other markets made do with fewer features.

Another case in point.

My first car was a VW Golf 3-door hatchback. A Teutonically efficient design, but locally assembled as a veritable schit-box of thin carpet, cardboard hatchback boot cover and non-opening rear side windows.

I like the convenience of intermittent wipers. The Golf didn’t come with intermittent wiper control. Sell it and buy another car with this feature? Not necessary.

I had a very detailed workshop manual which covered international variations of Golfs and Scirocco coupes. The fuse and relay panel had a space for an intermittent wiper relay. I took the manual to an auto electrician and we examined the three-pronged plug holes set aside for it.

He looked at the wiring diagram. He found an intermittent wiper relay can for a Japanese car which would fit. We plugged it in to see if it would work. It did!

So I drove away with the only 1976-77 Golf in Australia with intermittent wipers. I don’t know when following generations of locally available Golfs got around to having this feature. And it only cost me about $18 (multiply that by three for today’s inflated dollar value). You can bet that I talked up this feature when I sold the car, as well I might.

So how can you incrementally improve your wheels to a place of Heightened Reality? What holes are there yet to be (ahem) plugged?