Curbside Classic Outtake: Suddenly It's 1987
Published: March 30th, 2010
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I always have an eye out for two-fers, especially when they share such a close range of age and manufacturer. We’ll do both of these significant cars justice in future Curbside Classics, so consider this a preview of coming attractions. Oh, but its not just the late eighties on this side of the street!
I’ll let you name and date them; I’m afraid a couple of them are not quite from 1987, but close enough.
More by Paul Niedermeyer
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Regardless of the year, I wish I could find one of those Toyota trucks.
The alloy wheels for the '89-'92 Acclaims were the diamond spoke design. On the back of the Haynes service manual for the Spirit and Acclaim, there's a picture of an Acclaim with those rims. It has a trunk rack, so the rack must have been available for the full model run. The '93-'95 Spirit and Acclaim had different hubcaps and alloy wheels. The hubcaps were really cheap looking things for the Spirit. The alloys, as r129 said, came with gold paint in the cutouts. The Spirit alloys were different from the Acclaim's. The Spirit alloys had sort of swoosh cutouts, while the Acclaim's were symetrical. Both rims also came with grey paint in the cutouts, for alloy-equipped models that did not have the "gold" package. Why do I know this sort of useless information? When shopping for used alloys for our'90 Spirit, I lucked into a set of the grey-trimmed Acclaim alloys, which look fine on the Spirit, while the gold ones would not. Actually, if anyone's REALLY into this, www.hubcaps.com has pictures of all the hubcaps and rims used on Spirits and Acclaims, sorted by model years. The Acclaim in the picture, whatever year it is, has the '89-'92 hubcaps. Regarding the gold-colored trunk rack, I've never seen one. I've also never seen anything attached to one of these racks. The update for '93 cheapened the Spirits and Acclaims. All sorts of parts were simplified. The excellent folding back seats went away. The badges etc. on the trunk lid were just stickers. The Spirit lost its amber rear turn signal lights, and got a huge fake amber plastic panel instead.