Doomed 1979 Corolla Wagon Would Fit In Current Corolla's Cup Holder

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

The tiny rear-wheel-drive station wagon, killed by hatchbacks, minivans, and 64-ounce sodas, is no longer with us. Here’s a reminder of an era in which such vehicles were relevant.

The 2T-C engine in this car displaced 1,588cc and made 88 horsepower. That doesn’t sound like much, but keep in mind that this car scaled in at a mere 2,280 pounds.

Yes, it was noisy and crude and would leave nothing but a grim memory in the responding paramedics’ minds after tangling with an Excursion, but I’m still saddened to see another subcompact wagon get crushed.






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • MyCorolla MyCorolla on Jan 24, 2011

    Well, I'm taking my 78 Toyota Corolla out of retirement. I have a carburetor related problem. When the car warms up the idle heaves back and forth. I was advised it's an idle air control valve. What part is that exactly? Can anybody advise where I can find a picture of one? The car passes smog at normal driving speed but not when idling. Also, I found a lot of carbon build up in the EGR valve, is it possible the interior of the engine as the build up as well? What type of instrument do I use to clean inside via the ports?

  • Amy Amy on Apr 28, 2024

    I owned this exact car from 16 until 19 (1990 to 1993) I miss this car immensely and am on the search to own it again, although it looks like my search may be in vane. It was affectionatly dubbed, " The Dragon Wagon," and hauled many a teenager around the city of Charlotte, NC. For me, it was dependable and trustworthy. I was able to do much of the maintenance myself until I was struck by lightning and a month later the battery exploded. My parents did have the entire electrical system redone and he was back to new. I hope to find one in the near future and make it my every day driver. I'm a dreamer.

  • MRF 95 T-Bird I own a 2018 Challenger GT awd in the same slate gray color. Paid $28k for it in late 2019 as a leftover on the lot. It’s probably worth $23k today which is roughly what this 2015 RT should be going for.
  • Mike978 There is trouble recruiting police because they know they won’t get support from local (Democratic) mayors if the arrests are on favored groups.
  • FreedMike I'm sure that someone in the U.S. commerce department during the 1950s said, "you know, that whole computer thing is gonna be big, and some country is going to cash in...might as well be us. How do we kick start this?" Thus began billions of taxpayer dollars being spent to develop computers, and then the Internet. And - voila! - now we have a world-leading computer industry that's generated untold trillions of dollars of value for the the good old US of A. Would "the market" have eventually developed it? Of course. The question is how much later it would have done so and how much lead time (and capital) we would have ceded to other countries. We can do the same for alternative energy, electric vehicles, and fusion power. That stuff is all coming, it's going to be huge, and someone's gonna cash in. If it's not us, you can damn well bet it'll be China or the EU (and don't count out India). If that's not what you want, then stop grumbling about the big bad gubmint spending money on all that stuff (and no doubt doing said grumbling on the computer and the Internet that were developed in the first place because the big bad gubmint spent money to develop them).
  • MRF 95 T-Bird The proportions of the 500/Taurus-Montego/Sable were a bit taller, akin to 1940’s-50’s cars in order to cater to crossover buyers as well as older drivers who tend to like to sit a tad higher.
  • FreedMike You know, before you judge this IS the same police department that gave Sonny Crockett a Ferrari Testarossa to cruise around in.
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