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BODACIOUS BEATERS and road-going derelicts: CRUMPLED COROLLA
That I do agree with other’s criticism of the fact that the Toyota Corolla has become too appliance-like over the past decade, has me looking back on earlier iterations of the model with increasing...
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Corolla vs. Cube: Why Choose Boring?
I recently inherited a Nissan Cube from my brother. When I tell people this, they have two distinct reactions. For anyone who isn’t into cars, it’s: “Your brother died?” Car people, however, usually...
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Corolla, Not Focus, World’s Best-Selling Car, Toyota Says
Yesterday, Ford announced that its Focus “is officially the world’s best-selling passenger car,” with 1,020,410 units sold worldwide in 2012. That according to registration data compiled by Polk....
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Junkyard Find: 1976 Toyota Corolla Deluxe Liftback
Having driven quite a few mid-70s Corollas (these cars were as commonplace during my early driving years as are second-gen Tauruses today), I have to say that they were painfully slow even by the...
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Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corolla Tercel
I know it probably made perfect marketing sense for Toyota to piggyback their new subcompact’s image atop that of the fantastically successful Malaise Era Corolla, in spite of the fact that the two...
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First Drive Review: 2014 Toyota Corolla (With Video)
Calling the Corolla “Toyota’s most important car” would be an understatement. This single model accounts for 38 percent of all Toyotas ever sold in the USA and they expect to shift 330,000 next year...
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First Drive Review: 2014 Mazda3 (With Video)
The mainstream compact car segment is the perfect example of the infamous “driving appliance.” The Corolla and Civic sell in enormous volume because they are the middle-of-the-road “white bread”...
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Hammer Time: The Automotive Extremist
Life is sometimes about extremes, and with the extreme life of buying and selling cars comes two cars, recently purchased by me, which easily represent the polar opposites of all things automotive....
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Hammer Time : Pick Your Stick!
5 cars – 5 sticks = 0 Customer Demand I hate looking at that equation. But these days, it’s about as true for the car business as Georgia is hot. An older stickshift vehicle that isn’t an all out...
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Capsule Review: 2014 Toyota Corolla S Plus CVT
“Are you interested in our Thousand Dollar Test Drive raffle?” the saleslady eagerly asked. A row of new Corollas beckoned at the front of the lot; their freshly redesigned maws were hungry for...
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Junkyard Find: 1978 Toyota Corolla Wagon
The third-gen Corolla was the car that made Toyota in the Unites States; you saw the occasional Corona or Celica and maybe a rare Crown once in a while before the mid-70s, but the 1974-79 Corolla was...
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Junkyard Find: 1998 Toyota Corolla LE, New Jersey Skater Edition
After yesterday’s Corolla Junkyard Find, it seemed right to follow up with another, newer, Corolla. You know how you can tell when you’re a car’s final owner? Such was the case with the final owner of...
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Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corolla Liftback
It has become a Corolla Junkyard Find week, with this ’78 Corolla wagon on Monday and this skateboarder-enhanced ’98 Corolla LE sedan yesterday, so I’m going to keep the streak going with today’s find:...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1984 Toyota Corolla Hatchback, Spray-Foam Rust-Repair Edition
Let’s follow up 21st Century Junkyard Find Week and Volkswagen Junkyard Find Week with Rusty Junkyard Find week, shall we? On Tuesday, we saw this ’83 Toyota pickup with not-so-effective...
View ArticleHammer Time: Is Scion The New Geo?
Imagine if you will. The world’s largest and most consistently successful automaker is in deep trouble. Not because of profits, but because of products. They build a small car… and a small army of...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1986 Chevrolet Nova Sedan, Wisconsin Rust Edition
Every summer, I go to Wisconsin to stay in a cabin on Lake Michigan owned by my wife’s family. Mostly I’m rendered too immobile by excessive cheese curd and cured-meat consumption to do much junkyard...
View ArticleToyota Wants $500 From Canadian Owners To Fix Odometers (Video)
Owners of some Toyota cars in Canada say that the Japanese automaker is asking them to foot the bill for replacement odometers due to a glitch that won’t allow the gauges to roll over after 299,999...
View ArticleToyota Just Showed Off The New Prius And Already It’s a Hit, We Guess
On Tuesday night, Toyota dropped the new Prius from the sky in Las Vegas in front of journalists (we guess our invite got lost in the mail, Toyota?), “social influencers” and bartenders, because most...
View ArticleCrapwagon Outtake: 2005 Toyota Corolla XRS
As a father, I have to rationalize my automotive wanderlust at times. I can’t go buy a sportscar on a whim, no matter how great the deal, as I still have to feed and transport my children. But...
View Article2016 Honda Civic EX Review – All-in on Active Safety
Honda received much flogging from the press for the last-generation Civic. The 2012 model was the result of Honda improperly reading the Magic 8-Ball amid the global slowdown. Honda’s decision makers...
View ArticleDigestible Collectible: 1988 Toyota Corolla FX16 GTS
It was the summer of 1990, and my mom was getting tired of her old Sentra. With barely 70 horsepower, it was lethargic on any grade. To be fair, we live in Ohio, so steep hills are not frequently...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1980 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon
The fourth-generation Corolla was a gigantic sales success in California, but you won’t see many of these TE72 wagons even in rust-free regions these days; nearly all of them were driven into the...
View ArticleNYIAS: Fifty-Year-Old Toyota Corolla Gets New Nose
The eleventh generation Toyota Corolla has been refreshed with a new beak-like nose, and equipped with new safety features and options. Furthermore, as the Corolla is celebrating its 50th anniversary...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1981 Toyota Corolla SR-5 Liftback
These days, plenty of tuner kids want to get a E70 Corolla and turn it into a sick drift machine … but then reality sets in and they end up commuting to work in a 15-year-old Kia Rio instead....
View ArticleToyota 86 Gets a Price Bump for 2017, as More Manuals Disappear from Our Streets
Toyota has released 2017 prices for some of its small cars, and it looks like a name change (and modest power increase) tacked a slight premium onto the Toyota 86, formerly the Scion FR-S. A sign of...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1978 Toyota Corolla
I don’t know where all these Malaise Era Japanese econoboxes have been hiding prior to showing up in Denver-area junkyards, but they sure haven’t been on the street. Under tarps, forgotten in back...
View ArticleNew or Used: Common Sense or Uncommon Downsizing?
Dave writes: Hello Sajeev and Steve, First time writer, long time reader; I must say, TTAC and Piston Slap rocks. My wife and I are in a bit of a quandary. We currently own outright a 1997 Chevy Monte...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1989 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Wagon
You want rare? When’s the last time you saw a Corolla All-Trac, anywhere? Colorado, where I live, is sort of a living museum of four-wheel-drive vehicles that have been forgotten in the rest of the...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1973 Toyota Corolla Deluxe
By the time this Junkyard Find ’78 Corolla was built, the Corolla was an institution in North America (at least in the western parts of the country). Not so with this ’73, built when Toyota was still a...
View ArticleNew or Used: Ending 2011 with a Bang!
Danny writes: I am looking to buy an RX-7 (FC) convertible. I currently own a hand me down 2000 Honda Accord V6 from my mother in law. this car drinks WAY too much gas. 20 dollars in 89 octane gas...
View ArticleNew or Used: Which Last Car?
TTAC Commentator threeer writes: A recent ”New or Used” got me thinking. I’m facing a (sort of) similar situation regarding an upcoming vehicle purchase…for my 67 year old mother. A brief background…...
View ArticleToyota Starts Second Shift For The Corolla. What For?
A few days ago, 24/7 Wall Street published yet another list of the best selling cars of all times, kicking the perennial Ford F-Series to second place. We usually stay away from these lists, they just...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1987 Chevrolet Nova
When the GM Fremont Assembly plant took on Toyota managers and became NUMMI in 1984, the same supposedly inept lineworkers who hammered together sub-par Buick Apollos suddenly started building Corollas...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corolla SR5
Keeping track of American-market versions of the Corolla got difficult in the early 1980s, because you had the rear-drive E70 Corolla, and then you had the unrelated front-wheel-drive Corolla Tercel....
View ArticleReview: 2012 Toyota Yaris 3-Door
The 2012 Yaris! It’s a car! That might sound like the strangest marketing claim for a new car ever, but if you dig deeper it is Toyota’s attempt at saying “OK, we get it.” Why? Because Toyota, like...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1987 Toyota Corolla FX16 GT-S
Just a few years after Toyota confused American car shoppers by badging the early Tercel as the “Corolla Tercel,” they offered two very different vehicles as the 1987 “Corolla GT-S.” One was the AE86...
View ArticleAdventures In Marketing: In An Alternate Universe, the Corolla Is All About Sex
Having suffered behind the wheel of a few rented Corollas during my travels with the 24 Hours of LeMons Circus, I’m here to tell you that the current generation of Corolla— the version you get in...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1975 Toyota Corolla
It’s strange how the passage of a few decades makes the mid-70s Corolla seem like a much better car than it actually was. Granted, it was quite a car for the time, with a combination of price,...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1981 Toyota Corolla Liftback Coupe
After 15 years of sales in the United States, the Corolla had become as familiar to Americans as the Nova or Dart. By 1981, Toyota had confused matters by badging the unrelated Tercel as the “Corolla...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1992 Geo Prizm
We’ve seen a few NUMMI-built Junkyard Finds in recent weeks, including this ’87 Nova and this ’87 Corolla FX16 GT-S. However, the car that really comes to mind when you think of NUMMI is the Geo Prizm....
View ArticleToyota Launches 11gen Corolla. No, You Can’t Have It
When a new generation of the world’s best selling car, and of the best selling cars of all times (accounts differ) rolls off the line at its factory, then this is usually a big deal. This time, it’s a...
View ArticleReview: 11th Gen Corolla, JDM Spec, And A Discussion With Its Chief Engineer
Two weeks ago, I covered the arrival of the 11th generation Corolla in Japan. In Japan, the sedan is called Corolla Axio, the station wagon variant is called the Corolla Fielder. My report caused...
View ArticleCar Fight: Hyundai Azera v.v. Toyota Camry Hybrid, Niedermeyer v.v. Schmitt
Welcome to Car Fight, the comparison test with no basis for comparison. In this edition, we join Editor-In-Chief Bertel Schmitt and Editor-at-Large Ed Niedermeyer in sunny Southern California, where...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1987 Toyota Corolla GT-S FX16
Rear-wheel-drive AE86 Corolla GT-Ss are worth bucks these days, and you won’t see them in low-priced self-serve wrecking yards. The AE82 front-wheel-drive Corolla GT-S hasn’t held its value so well,...
View ArticleFiction: Kaida Dreams of Glory
The dream is always the same. The day is ending. Cool evening breezes riffle across the sun-scorched furze and set dried leaves a-rustling in the trees, their sibilant hiss like the restless fluttering...
View ArticleFord Flubs Focus First, Fixes, Fails, Falls Flat
These F-words were brought to you by Ford. Yesterday, Ford’s 350 millionth vehicle rolled off the lines. It was a Ford Focus, and an occasion to celebrate an even more auspicious record: The Ford Focus...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1990 Toyota Corolla GT-S
You’re not going to find a rear-wheel-drive AE86-platform Corolla GT-S in a low-priced self-service wrecking yard, not these days. The later front-wheel-drive Corolla GT-S FX16 shows up in such yards...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1988 Toyota Corolla
Because the factory-hot-rod FX-16 version of the AE82 Corolla held its value better than the non-GT-S version, you tend to see more of the FX-16s in junkyards these days. In fact, this is the first one...
View ArticleJunkyard Find: 1989 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Wagon
I now believe that at least half the Toyota All-Tracs ever sold ended up in Colorado, based on the quantities I see in junkyards around Denver. We saw the only Camry All-Trac I’ve ever found anywhere...
View ArticleWho Killed The Camry?
Blame the Rebels. Nissan’s Rogue was the best-selling vehicle without a pickup bed in December of 2016, largely thanks to a massive advertising campaign that tied into one of the two recent Star Wars...
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