Junkyard Find: 1983 Toyota Cressida Station Wagon

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

It has taken a few decades, but Toyota Cressidas now show up at the big self-service wrecking yards in respectable numbers. I find these Lexus ancestors very interesting, so I shoot most of the ones I see; so far in this series, we have seen this ’80, this ’82, this ’83 wagon, this ’84, this ’84, this ’86 wagon, this ’87, this ’89, this ’90, and this ’92 (plus this ’79 and this ’86 wagon in my Junkyard Gems series).

Today’s Cressida is a zero-rust ’83 wagon in California.

264,248 miles, which isn’t very remarkable on a Cressida. Probably it still ran at the end, or it needed a $150 repair that the final owner didn’t consider justifiable for a 34-year-old beater.

For the 1983 model year, the Cressida received a bunch of Toyota Supra genetic material, including the very advanced (for the era) DOHC 5M-GE straight-six engine.

These horrible automatic seat belts were required on non-airbag-equipped US-market cars in the early 1990s, but Toyota included them voluntarily in these cars.

Toyota used some variation of this switch for decades in the automatic-equipped cars. My original Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox uses a Cressida ECT switch of this era to control the dual power antennas.

The word Cressida comes from the name of a character in a Shakespeare play.

In Japan, this car was known as the Mark II. Here we see the sedan pitched as a refined ride for a dignified and wealthy businessman.







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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  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Sep 25, 2017

    Love the old square block steering wheels on these, like something from a bumper car. Also enjoy the super conservative old ads from Japan. Mr. Businessman with his briefcase and joyous, yet not overly expressive wife.

    • See 1 previous
    • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Sep 25, 2017

      @bumpy ii Up the chain, it's eventually Mitsubishi. Always love on the old ads when they say "ATARASHI TANJO," whatever that means. Nissan - fun. 2. Drive.

  • Bobmaxed Bobmaxed on Sep 25, 2017

    Boy I'm getting old. I thought this article was about the Toyota Crown wagon. A good friend of mine liked his so much that he bought a second one. Late 70"s I guess.

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  • Merc190 A CB7 Accord with the 5 cylinder
  • MRF 95 T-Bird Daihatsu Copen- A fun Kei sized roadster. Equipped with a 660cc three, a five speed manual and a retractable roof it’s all you need. Subaru Levorg wagon-because not everyone needs a lifted Outback.
  • Merc190 I test drive one of these back in the day with an automatic, just to drive an Alfa, with a Busso no less. Didn't care for the dash design, would be a fun adventure to find some scrapped Lancia Themas or Saab 900's and do some swapping to make car even sweeter. But definitely lose the ground effects.
  • MRF 95 T-Bird These 164s, as documented by its owner have to be constantly sorted, as they say. They are nice drivers. I’d rather find a, under the 25 year rule nice and easier to deal with Type 916 Alfa Romeo GTV/Spyder.
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