Sometimes you’ll see a car for sale and it will literally take your breath away with its aching beauty or rarity or just how the whole price-to-car ratio just makes it such a stunning deal. This is one of those cases. This is one of those times when a car that should be the literal dictionary entry for boring – a 1996 Toyota Camry – somehow exceeds all possible expectations and becomes something far, far beyond what you ever thought it could be. This car is available in Sydney, Australia, for the minuscule sum of $845 Australian dollerydoos, or a mere $574.40 in American Screaming Eagle dollars. As you can see by these pictures, this car has been improved not by something added to it, but by a brilliant act of editing.
Look at this thing! It’s been bisected right at the B-pillar, and all that cumbersome bullshit that we call a “back half of the car” has been wisely replaced with some square-section steel tubing mounting what looks like a colossal shopping cart wheel. I think it pivots, like a caster?
There’s also a pair of angled braces, because this is not some hack job, and what looks kind of like a drink cooler that has been re-purposed into a fuel tank? Is that right? That’s brilliant, as it will keep your hot gas hot and you cold gas cold.
There’s not a whole lot of other information in the add – not that any rational person needs any more information – save for the mileage (quite low, for a Camry!) and that it’s an automatic (oh well, nothing is perfect) and then the one bit of absolute deep-fried, cheese-slathered gold that is the Seller’s Description:
Not only do I have no notes here, I have nothing but boundless respect for these absolutely glorious five words, which, together, should receive the Nobel Prize for Understatement or Chemistry, whichever gives the bigger prize.
Just imagine what owning this thing would be like! If that rear wheel pivots, what must this be like to whip around! Think about the tightness of the donuts you could do! Think how maneuverable this thing would be! It’d be like driving a fast forklift, kind of?
Plus, even better, the looks on the faces of the people you encounter with this car, after you tell them you just drive an old Camry, have to be absolutely priceless. Imagine picking up someone on a first date in this thing, after telling them to keep an eye out for the silver Toyota Camry approaching them. That pause as their mind tries to process exactly what the hell it is they’re looking at, before tentatively opening the door and sitting down, a mix of excitement and fear and confusion pulsating throughout their body!
You can’t get as good a reaction from a car even if you rolled up in a fucking Bentley. This three-wheeled half-Camry, this is it. Whatever your questions are, this is the answer.
Godspeed, friend.
UPDATE: It’s a Camry. Not a Corolla, as the ad suggests. A commenter reminded me, but I’m kicking myself because I looked at the front and registered Camry and just went with Corolla, anyway, because, let’s be honest, I was rushing. I have a lot of growing up to do. Also, is this really in Sydney?
(Thanks to our favorite Australian, Laurence, for showing us the light about this!)
It’s left hand drive and the cars in the parking lot are CLEARLY stateside.
Totally agree… Could tell from the three-quarter ton Silverado work truck in the background
The ad says that the location is approximate, just not how approximate.
If the back wheel is completely free swiveling wouldn’t it start crabbing rather than turning?
Also pretty sure this has been around the internet for awhile.
Here’s the exact same picture from a 2021 Reddit post claiming North Carolina, but I think it’s older than that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Shitty_Car_Mods/comments/rqzfu1/just_try_not_to_get_rear_ended/
This is literally a coupé.
Can we get a suspension engineer to weigh in on whether it would turn turtle under heavy braking? What would turn in be like at a truly insane pace, say 40 MPH? Quick, someone buy it and get it to Scandinavia for a moose test! I need that fail video!
The 5 gallon pail just behind the drivers seat full of fuel is an impressive gamble.
Still safer than a Pinto.
I’ll add to the comments that have raised eyebrows at the authenticity here and say that’s not a ’96 Camry either, but a ’92-94. Maybe someone here can pin down its U.S. origin by the inspection stickers in the windshield.
A little impressed they still have the original hubcap, more impressed the door handle is intact and not broken off as is so common on Toyotas of the era. Which is another bonus here – if they do break, still have easy entry.
Wait!? It’s half a Camry… So it’s a Can… it’s it Australia so the AU… and it’s a hard top, not a Spyder. Welcome to the very first Can-Au Coupé. Suck on that Can-Am Spyder! I bet this even has wild comforts like air conditioning and a cassette deck.
You could also go with Can-Au-pé… it sounds a little more appetising!
It’s front wheel drive. As long as you are demanding some degree of forward acceleration, it will go in whatever direction you are steering it toward, and it will be relatively easy to correct if it decides to wander in a direction contrary to the driver’s intent.
I just want to know… How much alcohol was consumed to make this seem like a good idea?
In Sydney? CALLING MCM!!! I wonder what kind of music video Moog would come up with for this thing?
Finally, a Camry for the suicidal.
I’ve been waiting for this.
Toss me the keys and hold my beer.
Now find someone selling the back half of a Fiero with motorcycle steering welded to it and you’ve got a shitbox showdown.
COTD. Right. Here.
On the off chance anyone’s having trouble picturing such a creation, I found this one locally a while back.
https://i.imgur.com/PM2Yn.jpg
Weld them together for dual motor shenanigans.
YES!
We are beholding David and Laurence’s next ute restoration project.
VERY optimistic, my man.
This is Jason Torchinsky writing, in his world, that’s not optimism, it’s just life. I mean, he has a wife and child.
And he lives in a real people house. I know, I’ve been there. Just don’t ask about the basement…….
Can we get a Morgan 3-wheeler?
No, we have a Morgan 3-wheeler at home.
The Morgan 3-wheeler at home:
COTD
Morgan’t.
Perfectly safe when you get rear-ended by an F-150!
There is no way in hell that this is in Sydney. LHD, not road worthy and not worth enough to bother taking it to a shopping centre carpark that almost certainly can’t exist in that part of southern Sydney.
I’ll take it. This thing will go great with my thundering toolbag cargo shorts I just bought off TEMU.
#idiot goals
I have seen cut-down cars like this at technical colleges. This way, the cars take up less shop space than a complete car would but are still useful for on-car activities when learning driveability/fuel injection, electrical, brakes, and driveline topics.
This is a Camry, not Corolla. Also the photos are of a US-spec LHD Camry in the US (note the Chevy in the background) so something is fishy here.
I can confirm this. This car was parked in South Corning, NY outside of an auto shop a few months back. Made me laugh every time I drove past. It is a shame I never saw it running though.
Came here to say this.
Torch has had a hard week, give him a break. He just slipped back into lightning-site style for a second.
Yeah, Leave Torch alone! Jeez! How do you all expect him to identify a car WITH NO TAIL-LIGHTS?
All small Toyota sedans are the same car. This fact is a very well kept secret.
They start as featureless blobs in hot houses, somewhere in Asia where they grow them, which then harden into pupae, and undergo a metamorphosis, to form the different models we can observe roaming the streets of America.
Although we usually identify the different Toyota species by the morphology of their tail lights and such, painstaking DNA analysis has proven them to be just one car, as I have explained above.
It is therefore totally understandable that someone might miss the small details differentiating each of the forms. Especially if the example in question is an amputee of some sort. The distinction is specious.
My Yaris hatch is a special dwarf variant, but it’s true.
obligatory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdw_Ux0erzE
“…And Will Save You 25% On Tires”
I don’t see a spare so presumably the savings are actually 40%.
Quite a rare machine even as a complete vehicle. I mean a LHD Corolla in Australia? Quite a rare bird. They also got some pretty American looking roads and American-market looking vehicles apparently…
If that back wheel is on a caster, I have to wonder what handling is like. Left is right, right is left, dogs and cats living together, pure mayhem!
Like the Ikea flatbed carts, I presume.
Pinewood derby me would like to know how they dispensed with friction. Those carts coast for days!
I have so many questions. At first I thought it might be a JDM halfcut as is Aussie tradition, but why would one get a Corolla, no desire for that engine. Then I notice it’s LHD, so it’s imported? Most confusing. Also there is zero chance you’d drive that on the road in NSW, straight to to jail, do not pass go.