DAILY DRIVEN
NAME: ZAC JACKISON AGE: 21 LOCATION: THAMES OCCUPATION: GENERAL ENGINEERING APPRENTICE
NZPerformance Car : Hey, Zac. Tell us how you got into cars and what your first was.
Zac: Hi, NZPC. One of my oldest memories with cars is of my step dad taking me for skids in his Skyline on my fifth birthday. I’ve been into cars ever since then, really, and my first was a loud and low Corolla.
Was it that first taste of Toyota that made you buy the Corona?
Yeah, old Toyotas are pretty cool in my eyes, and this one being an RT94 coupe made it pretty rare. When I first looked at it for sale, I thought to myself, “Wow, this has an awesome shape”, and it was one of those ‘I need to have this’–type moments.
We don’t blame you. How does it go with the 18R engine swap, and what do you know about the conversion?
It goes fairly well for a 46-year-old [laughs]. I don’t know much about the swap, other than it was popular back in the day and that the motors themselves came out of later Coronas and the equivalent-generation Celicas, so they were fairly common. With a good rev range and a decent amount of pull for a two-litre carb, it was easy to see why people swapped them in place of the 6R.
And we understand you’ve done a bit since buying it?
The majority of the car was taken back to bare steel and [had the] rust cut out with patches welded in. It was primed and resprayed by in WRX blue with a red fleck mixed into the clear coat. Other than that, I chucked the dumpy on and changed a bunch of interior/exterior trimmings.
Has it been hard to source parts for, being such an uncommon model here?
Very difficult. Nothing has been easy to find, to the point where, in order to ditch the external regulators, I’ve had to install an alternator out of an EA Falcon.
We bet. Is there anything you want to do with it in future?
Just finding the last few interior pieces and reupholster[ing] the worn-out bits. Maybe an engine rebuild, but we’ll see how it all goes.
Not a bad plan, Zac. Thanks for sharing her with us.