July 2005 to present - 1992 Toyota Sera EXY-10 ACPMGH(S) Chassis 15350 (1.5 Manual SLSS Phase III)

August 2004 to October 2005 - 1990 Toyota Sera EXY-10 ACPGH Chassis 11613 (1.5 Auto)
(Now sold - living in Bristol/Huddersfield)

September 2003 to May 2004 - 1990 Toyota Sera EXY-10 ACPGH Chassis 7734 (1.5 Auto)
(Now sold - living in Brighton)

Click here for this Sera's historical progress report, updates and overall costs.

First Sera acquired: 17/09/2003
Page last updated: 27/12/2005

Being a fan of weird cars, I wanted a Sera for ages, but never found one I could afford. Then, one day in September 2003, I found this lurking behind Value Cars in Galashiels. The rear seats were all removed, the car was filthy, it had a terrible bodged repair on one headlight, and it wouldn't run.

Siani took this picture of it, as I only had my mobile phone camera. I took a couple of short videoclips of it.

These videos are from a Three mobile - they may not work on Mac, they do work on my PC.

Front right video

Doorglass video

After a little bit of haggling, I was told the price the dealer had bought the car for. We were already buying two cars from them, so I hoped I'd be able to get the Sera for a sensible price. After seeing it, I'd assumed (and was told) the car had no tax or MOT left, it wouldn't start, and looked in very poor condition. I offered a silly amount for it, on the basis that the owner's club told me headlights were £250-300 each, and usable Seras could be found for £2,000 (which is true, as it happens. I've seen some fairly nice looking ones go on eBay for that sort of money). Fresh/good imports are nearer £5000.

Eventually, they suggested a price of £1,000 if the car would start and drove okay. I offered them my Golf GTI, since it would make life easier if I just swapped it. They accepted, so I got the Golf out of the yard (not easy, it was blocked in by the blue Mercedes you can see behing the Sera which had no suspension on one side), and took it over. When I got there, the Sera had a new battery and was running fine. I took it for a run, and went to discuss the Golf - only to be told that the Sera was still MOTd and taxed.

Having told them what the Sera was worth, I thought that I wouldn't get it. In the end we agreed on a small amount of money, basically less than I would have been spending on the Golf GTI just to get it right, and I had the Sera. The photo above shows what it looked like after a couple of hours cleaning, refitting the seats etc. The very top photo shows the latest state of the Sera; at last update, with new mesh and headlights fitted.

I was a little sad that I'd had to leave the new Sony CD player in my Golf, especially as on my next visit to the garage it was apparent they'd removed it anyway. The Sera's Kenwood radio was badly installed without any proper brackets, and didn't work anyway..

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Not to be deterred by mere radios, I took the dash apart and found that the original Toyota wiring and the Kenwood's ISO wiring had been spliced together with bullet connectors, some of which were missing. I looked online and found out the basic Toyota colours, checked with a multimeter, and wired it up. It came up with CD 1... but was only a tape player! Gary Numan started playing.

In the boot of the car was a CD-changer. Still wired up, and still containing the previous owner's CDs - Gary Numan, NIN, Green Day, Beach Boys. Oh, and Oasis, but we can't all be perfect.

More research revealed that the (IMO, ugly) bodykit is in fact a fairly rare one, the G5 bodykit offered by a Japanese company. Most kits are of Australian origin, where a good number of Seras have emigrated.

More pics of the Sera once I'd cleaned it up a little...

I had several plans for restoring the Sera, but first some routine servicing was needed. The previous owner obtained the car from Calder Car Company. I suggest that anyone considering dealing with them doesn't. Your Toyota main dealer will probably be cheaper for servicing, and as for finding a Sera, this one was apparently quite a dog when it got into the country. It's still not quite right, but the more work I do, the more I am finding it to be more pleasant than say, an H-registered Audi or such, with very little rust that can't be accounted for. Seras are well made cars.

The headlights, being tarnished and in one case, horribly broken, are definitely in need of replacement. How much again? Well, not really. My local Toyota dealer was able to get a pair from Toyota, in the UK, as a stock item - for £141+VAT each. Brand new, of course, and with only 2 days delivery time.

This is the good headlight I removed from the left hand side. It's been swapped for spares for my car, and will go to help repair another Sera!

The radio should have been made up of one or two DIN sized components in an ISO cage, screwed in. If I had the original radio I would be able to make up a nice install for my car, but I don't, so until I can obtain a suitable cage, I've found an old storage box from a Citroen CX, and used it to prop the head unit up in a sensible position. There's no trim around it in this picture, as Calder motor company broke it when they charged the previous owner a fortune for the installation.

The G5 bodykit causes a couple of problems. With the lowered suspension, the car has minimal ground clearance, and therefore can't really be driven over speedbumps. I have a broken spring, which doesn't help matters one bit! It also has apertures for 'brake cooling ducts', which had been cut out. My car's previous owner put up with the brackets for the original bumper being visible for three years, and I'm amazed small animals haven't punctured the A/C radiator which is totally exposed.

In true boy racer style, I've decided to improve on this situation in a very simple way - mesh.

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Experimenting with mesh in the main air intake and finding that it will - just - fit with the A/C fan. The headlights are removed to check for damage to the panel after the previous owner told me about the bollard incident - there is a little damage to the front panel that if the car was worth more, I'd be into getting a new panel fitted. However, it's not serious and if I catch it now, it won't get to be.

Long term plans for the Sera involve repainting it in a Chromaflair based paint, so the mesh isn't fitted with glue and such, I am bonding metal brackets into the fibreglass bumper and riveting the mesh to them, so it can be removed and painted. Sourcing mesh was fun; Halfords sell Ripspeed branded stuff which is shiny and costs £20 for enough to do the air intake and ducts without much room for error. I was told that our local A1 place had good stuff, and it wasn't as nice looking as the Ripspeed stuff for the same price. However, B&Q have exactly the same mesh (aluminium stretch mesh) in a large sheet - enough to do three cars I suspect - for £18.

Because of the lack of history with my car, it's going straight to a dealer for the timing belt change. My local dealer charges £40/hr labour, and reckons on 2 1/2 hours to change the belt based on Paseo with A/C timings. The belt costs £24. Compare that to the negative attitude, 4 hours at £30, I got from the car's importers and you'll see why I sympathise with the original owner for being very disappointed with his Sera experience. As an example, the repaired headlight cost £150... I wonder if it included any of this work, though...

This is the turnsignal from the damaged corner. It's crushed, and crudely glued together. Surely the time taken to 'repair' it would have cost as much as a new turnsignal...

This isn't actually that bad. Extensive reinforcement, and externally it looks quite reasonable. I have some minor work to do, but I certainly don't need to worry too much about the state of the bumper. If I'd known then what I know now, I could also have replaced the metal insert for a few quid, massively improving the bumper and headlamp alignment.

And the 'repair' to the wing bracket. The damage clearly wasn't that severe.

One thing I won't need to worry about is the exhaust. It apparently has a full stainless system provided by Omicron engineering, who run the Sera registry in the UK. Doesn't look like a full system, mind, due to the cat still being in place, but the exhaust isn't in bad condition generally.

What is confusing is the pattern of kinks in the chassis, pictured here on one side, but seemingly, with identical ones on the other side...

Is that as it should be? Has someone jacked it up badly? Having been told it had been kerbed, I checked out the wishbone mounts on the driver's side (where the damaged light was) - this is what I saw. It all looks fine to me, and the other side is a good match.

The car isn't on a proper lift, sadly. It's currently on ramps, as I realised that with the front bumper removed, there was enough clearance to drive it up and change the oil - the filter was a Nippon type, so main dealer? Either way, it looks like the car hasn't had an oil change in a long time. I'll change it for GTX just now (not Magnatec this time, I want the filter to catch any particles, not for them to be magnetically attached to the friction surfaces!), run it for 2-3,000 miles, flush it, and change it again.

Right, with no headlights - the engine bay cleaned up a little. To anyone who said "put a bigger engine in", I say "where?". It's cramped. Very. The A/C receiver is in the inner wing under the battery, there's no access to anything. At least the exhaust exits from the front, making servicing easy - a common feature on Japanese cars, whereas French cars often exit at the rear of the engine...

Of course, after all this - the car was sold. Insurance was proving tricky at the time, and the outlay on the car was very much felt - but in hindsight it was a much better Sera than I gave it credit for. Hopefully the current owner is still enjoying it!

When the car was picked up, I took the last pictures of it:

If you have any information, feedback or comments on this website, I can be reached by emailing sera(at)dmc12.demon.co.uk - there is no link at present due to the amount of spam and Swen-type emails I've had, I have no desire to have more harvested!

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