It's at this point the Celica starting heading down a bad path. (About a year after the rim repaint)
Unfortuantly I didn't have my own digital camera until recently, so no pics.
1. While coming out of an unfamiliar driveway in the dark a giant bolder that I'm guessing was for decoration in someones driveway met with my rear passenger rocker panel and the lower end of the door. It gouged some large scraps into the door and rocker panel. Had them both repaired, and resprayed by my mechanic.
2. Next, while parked in my driveway my brothers girlfriend ran her full size family van into my passenger side. It wasn't TOO bad, the door was scrapped minimally, and the passenger mirror was ripped clear from the car. In the celica's defense, the van lost a rear tail light, and it suffered much worse scraps. Take that!
She was very very poor at the time, and my father would not let me get her insurance for a claim. Consquently I took it to a mechanic (not the previous one) and he did a half assed job as repairing the mirror and the door. I'll never go back there again.
3. Worst of all- my accident.
My freshwater shark had just passed away after only a few days after purchasing him. I was taking his corpse back to the pet storm for replacement and my car happened to be in the garage. Overly concerned with the shark not getting death water on my capet I was watching the container as I backed out of the garage. In my hast, I had left the door open ajar (about 3-4 inches). As I backed up, my drivers side door opened further and caught the side of the garage lip.
It bent the edge of the door in a good two inches in one spot (honestly not that bad) and pulled my window glass off track and almost out of the door. Instead of repairing the door, I went to the junkyard and got a 92' door for a whopping $20. Prepped it, and had my mechanic paint to match. He did an amazing job, and it looks perfect with the other paint.
4. I discovered some rust in the best of places. The drivers side rear wheel well. I was at college, so I decided to tackle the job myself, and see how well I could do it. Some 7 hours of sanding later, I had taken out a large chunk of my fender and removed the cancer.
Here's a mid process picture
Filled the whole with bondo ( i know, i know) and sanded and painted it. It currently looks like ass, and I'm still working to fix it. Going in for a consult with my mechanic this week.
Much to my dismay two days ago I found a very very large hole in my drivers rocker panel appox. 3" squared. It's also on the to-do list.