Ultra cool Corona at my local dealer

My dads first import was 1985 blue Golf. He drove it himself from Germany to Latvia where we lived at the time.

Was a great little car, don’t remember it giving much issues.

 

I wonder how reliable Toyotas were back in the 70s.

 

Damn, look at this bad boy.

I grew up in the 90s so I really loved BMW and Mercedes of that era:

 

Yeah, that oil is filter is great, and look at those spark plugs! How hard do you think it would be to change those? Of course, you’ll have to learn how to properly gap your points and adjust your valve lifters, but all that so easy and doable!

 

Man, that’s a good looking 2002!

OK this is a true story: I was driving my 1600 to school and pulled in the parking lot and I noticed this beautiful woman looking at me (they were all women to me even in their 20s back then as I was still a teenager) and as I walked by her, she asked me if I could help her out. She said she noticed I was driving an older BMW, so she asked if I could help with hers. It was a gorgeous 3.0 CSi. I must’ve looked confused because I was admiring her car as much as I was her. Anyways, I said, sure, and looked in the hood, and it only took me 10 seconds to fix it as the condenser coil power lead was loose. Of course it started right away and she said thank you and drove away. Man I should’ve stalled fixing that car, it would’ve given me a longer time to look at her car and talk with her!

 

Can't speak towards the reliability back then, but I do know that when our Corona was totalled, it was the early 80s, so the car was pushing 10 years old. My mom was driving, I was in the back seat, and we got rear-ended by a Volvo wagon of some flavor. We were both fine, the trunk was pretty well crushed in, and the frame bent, so it never drove again, but it was still running after the hit.

 

The 60's, no, but the 70's, they were rock solid. The Celica and Corolla would take abuse like you wouldn't believe. A lot of HS/post HS guys had them and ran the $hit out of them. The trucks were same

I bought one of these 77 model Corollas in the mid 1980s and ran the heck out of it. Zero issues.



One of my cousins had a late 70's Celica that he also abused daily. He bought new and sold in the 130,000 range and it really never let him down.



Of course, in those days, both were manual shift. Those Celicas actually had a kind of OBD display in ctr console that monitored and scrolled messages about oil pressure, water temp, etc.

I just bought another Corolla (GR) a month ago !

 

carburetors were the sore spot of nearly every car sold in America by '74. Too many hoses doing too many things. You could put aftermarket on anything and make it 100% more reliable.

BTW. My Corona memory stirred up (these were prob. more popular than Corollas) was a budd in HS that power braked his to a tire smoke show on the regular and it was stick shift.

 

In '67, HP was measured at the crank. By '84, they were measuring at the wheels, which is roughly a 16-17% difference (lower) due to mechanical/frictional losses.

 

This Corona is a regular at the Cars and Coffee near me. Nice older gentleman is the original owner. Of course swears by Amsoil. Super high milage but has had an engine swap. Great stories from the owner. Not sure if it's his daily, but definitely gets driven.

 

My California-registered Gen 2 was into Carlsbad Toyota in North San Diego county for its smog check last August. The dealership has a beautiful 1968 Corona on the floor of the (large!) service department waiting room.







Across the room they had a new bZ4X. Interesting contrast.

 

Damn! Even has the original black and yellow plates. SWEET!

 

Time capsule! Looks too pretty to drive, and by the looks of the location of the pic, it isn't.

 

The rating went from gross hp to net. Not to whp.

 

Same leaf springs too!

 

Haha! I wouldn’t doubt it.

 

Dang. Look at that thing! Super cool!

 

But does he do 5k oil changes?

 

That thing’s never seen Prince George winter roads

 

My parents first car in Canada was a 1986 celica with who knows how many miles.

They had that thing for years and it was absolutely bulletproof. Was young and dumb so I snuck that car out a couple times and drove the shit out of it. It was AT but of course I drove it like an MT… haha.