1999 Toyota Celica Convertible

Seller's picture from 2005

In 2005 I bought my midife crisis car. I have now driven it over 200,000 miles, mostly incident free until July 2024 when a someone attempted a 3 piont turn in front of me on my way to work.

The insurance estimate came in for $5,600 for a $450 fender, and a $250 headlight, a few other parts, and some labor and paint. The $450 fender on their estimate hadn't been made in decades, I might as well have tried to purchase a live t-rex as that fender. Liberty Mutual, my own insurance company, tried to total the car for about $4,000 when two comparable cars (with fewer miles) were listed at $20,000 and $25,000 on eBay. California requires a vehicle to be totalled when the repair cost exceeds 75% of the value of the vehicle, so I would have an uphill battle driving the valuation of my car from $4,000 to at least $7,500 to avoid having the car totalled and becoming completely useless to any collector as a salvage. Liberty Mutual would not even consider those comps, invoking the "we commit legalized fraud whenever we want" clause I have yet to find in my policy. When I complained to the California Department of Insurance, they told me I had to wait 30 days, but after waiting they did nothing other then tell me I would have to sue Liberty Mutual. Liberty Mutual and the California Department of Insurance both suck. I withdrew my claim to keep the Celica from being totalled.

They only way to get a Celica fender is from a junkyard or eBay.

In September 2024 I found that exact fender in my color from the exact same car on eBay for $650 including shipping. It was packaged poorly and arrived bent. Fortunately they took it back and I didn't have to pay any shipping - when I looked into it I found it costs a minimum of $300 to have FedEx ground beat, drop and bend your fender across the country. There have been no other Celica fenders on eBay.
I checked picknpull.com a few times and found zero serviceable fenders.
I eventually resigned myself to the fact that my car never get fixed and would always have a broken rusting fender.

I continued to drive it even as shards of glass continued to fall out of the broken headlight through the fall.
In October 2024 I ordered a headlight on eBay and spent an entire Saturday prying the bent fender enough so I could remove the front bumper and replace the headlight.

The front bumper is attached to each fender by three small bolts - my top bolt was quite unaccessible in the accident damage.
I used a jack to push the fender away from the frame enough to access to top bolt.

After hours of effort the black middle bolt that holds the bumper to the fender is visible in the lower left.
The out of focus 10mm socket in the upper left is on the top bolt.

Eventually I got the headlight installed using a longer bolt than the original and a stack of washers to adjust for frame damage.
I wasn't able to aim the headlight from under the hood because the frame was pushed in about an inch, the adjusting screw is now only accessible by removing the tire and wheelwell.
The headlight isn't aimed well at all, but I have two headlights and can legally drive it at night.
The passenger side headlight is aimed properly and provides decent coverage.

October 2024 - headlight "fixed"; fender less dented.

On Friday May 30, 2025 I checked picknpull for the first time in nearly a year and was shocked to see that a red 1997 Celica coupe had just arrived two weeks prior in Rancho Cordova, about two hours away.

Even better, the picture clearly showed that the fender I needed was intact. I figured there was no way the fender would still be there two weeks after the car arrived, every sixth generation Celica enthusiast in Northern California trying to restore one of these must have been there by now.

Saturday morning I drove out and was shocked to find the car in awful shape, but the fender was still there and was nearly perfect - just some scratches in the paint from hitting debris at freeway speeds, and my passenger side fender already had matching scratches.. Christmas came early! Someone had removed the front bumper, which requires removing most of the fender bolts, so I had the fender off in just 10 short minutes.

After I removed the fender from the donor.

The other fender had a large dent but might be servicable if one was desperate enough and willing to bondo the dent. The rear bumper and quarterpanels were perfect, but the trunk was shut and the key was missing so they were all inaccessible. I thanked the donor car for its sacrifice and left it to its fate.

I had read online that Celica convertibles have slightly different fenders than coupes.
The bottom of the 1997 coupe fender in back of the front wheel had a bracket where it bolts to the frame

The bottom of the 1999 convertible fender has a larger hole where it bolts directly to the frame - this is my car.
I got lucky, in an hour or so using a hacksaw and a drill I was able to modify they coupe fender to go on the convertible. It would be much more challenging to figure out how to do it the other way around if necessary.

Now that it is all back together the minor damage on the front bumper from the accident is noticable, but that means the fender now looks right.
The bright sunlight shows the red paint on the rest of my car seems more yellowed and faded than the new bumper.
I left the bass sticker on the fender as homage to the donor car, at least for now.

Post-repair trip to Mammoth, June 30, 2025

At least three different folks commented on the Celica during my trip to Mammoth.
Somehow it become an antique in the 20 years I've been driving it...
Fortunately I haven't aged.