Ohmigod everyone’s grandmother bought a Camry in 2000, kept it but never drove it for fifteen years, until eventually a grandchild inherits it and wants to pour a bunch of money into this new (free) ride. I can’t even count the number of souped up Camrys that have rolled out of our garage. Usually, we don’t really mind putting some ridiculous rims and tinted windows on a Camry, there is something inherently fun and funny about a car that is worth more in add-ons than engine.
Once about three years ago a young woman, probably about 22 years old, showed up to the shop with one such Camry. It was a 1999 Camry, dingy grey, and utterly unremarkable, but with only like 4000 miles on it. She said she wanted to “completely trick it out” and to “spare no expense.” She basically gave us free reign to…. pimp her ride. We wanted a budget and she told us, truly, to spare no expense and that she was ready to spend up to $25,000 on this silly trickery. We even told her she might as well just buy a fancy new car, she declined.
So we kept that car for about six weeks – we put a tint on the windows, painted it matte black with rose gold features, a spoiler, rose gold rims, a lowered kit, a beautiful interior with millennial pink leather seats, rose gold and black features, an in-dash navigation system with Bluetooth speakers.
It was beautiful work. We were all in awe of how gorgeous it was, how poor of an investment it was, and we were hopeful that this woman would return and be giddy about her instagrammable new whip. She came back to get it and she did, truly, find it beautiful. She was cute about it, grateful, and excited to drive it.
It was a really fun experience. I’ve never seen the car on the road and it’s barely drivable. But I always keep an eye out when in the neighborhood hoping I’ll see it driving past me.