LONG-TIME LOVE

You don’t often see superchargers in NZPC. In fact, they have been somewhat of a scarcity on these pages, and that makes checking out Tony Elkin’s whippet-like Toyota Levin in Palmerston North recently, that much sweeter. This AE85 has been in Tony’s possession for a grand total of 15 years — it’s been with the hardworking workshop owner through the good times and the bad. It’s served a sequal parts fun-provider, motivator, and therapist over that time, and now, after having been transformed from wheezy, car by runabout to a perfect balance of speed, handling, and classic looks over the last decade-and-a-half, it’s time for us to delve a little deeper.

“My old man was a mechanic, so I got introduced to cars at a young age,” says Tony. “I used to watch him build things — lots of hand-built motorcycles and go karts — and from there it was just a natural progression into older Japanese cars, providing they could go sideways.” First, Tony got into building the