Junkyard Find: 1971 Toyota Corona Mark II
My first car was a beige ’69 Corona sedan, and so I’m always happy to see a junkyard Corona. In this series prior to today, we’ve seen this ’66 sedan, this ’68 sedan, this ’70 sedan, this ’70 coupe, plus this Corona ad from the February 1969 issue of Playboy. Now I’ve found a Corona Mark II at a Denver yard.
Featuring overhead-cam 8R power, the Corona Mark II coupe had a respectable 108 horses under the hood.
Bucket seats, four-on-the-floor, $2,280 MSRP— not a bad deal, especially considering that the ’71 Chevrolet Vega coupe listed at a mere 84 bucks less. The ’71 AMC Gremlin was just $1,899, though, and a (surprisingly comfortable but way less well-appointed than the Corona) Simca 1204 could be had for $1,693.
These cars rusted with great eagerness, even in dry places like Colorado, and this one is no exception. Not worth restoring (in 2014), but still interesting.
The claim of 25 miles per gallon was more believable than most of the era.
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.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
Hello my friend I would like to know if you have the internal handles to sell. I am restauring a car like this in Brazil and I can't find the internal handles here. Thanks
where is the car i won't the wind shield