Last Saturday 06/28/08 we went down to Washington, Maine to purchase and pick up the donor car. The car is a 1994 Toyota Tercel. I decided on this car mainly due to its curb weight (1950 lbs) and also due to the condition of the vehicle. There is a small amount of rust around the wheel wells and the rocker panels have some rot, aside from that the car is mint. It will be perfect for the conversion.

We rented a tow dolly from U-Haul to go and pick the car up with. I probably could have driven it the 90 minutes home, but the car does not idle and the brakes were questionable. My father drove down with me and we picked up the car first thing in the morning. Those tow dollies are great and I would recommend them to anyone – easy as can be. We dropped the car off at the shop where we’ll do the work. We still needed to return the dolly to the U-Haul place about 30 minutes away. Rather than drive my father’s big Silverado for another hour, we decided to take his 1989 VW Jetta diesel. It’s a nice rig to be honest, mostly in part because he burns WVO (waste vegetable oil) in it – cost only a fraction of what it would have cost if we’d driven the Silverado there and back. The look on the guys face when we drove in the lot at U-Haul with the dolly hooked on the back of that old Jetta. He actually asked if we’d used that to do the towing with. I know that had nothing to do with the overall conversion, but funny nonetheless.

With any luck I can get some of the vehicle dismantled this weekend. It is the holiday though so I’m sure much of it will be spent with family.