Junkyard Find: 1979 Toyota Corona LE Sedan
We saw a Crusher-bound 1970 Corona last week, but that wasn’t the only 1970s Corona in this particular Northern California wrecking yard. A few rows away was this equally beige, but much larger and more sophisticated, ’79.
By the end of the 1970s, the Corona wasn’t selling so well in the United States. American car shoppers with fat wallets and a yen for a luxurious-yet-sensible Japanese sedan went for the Cressida, cheapskate car shoppers who still wanted Toyota reliability went for the Corolla, and everyone else bought Malibus and Diplomats. A few years later, the Camry showed up… and that was it for the Corona in North America.
The 20R engine wasn’t exactly smooth, but thousands of Hilux-driving warlords can vouch for its reliability.
This survivor of the streets of San Francisco may have been running just fine at the end; it doesn’t take much for the parking tickets to build up, and the next stop (unless the owner has thousands of bucks to pay The Man) is the the towed-cars auction.
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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Can you provide the name of the salvage yard you found this vehicle at? I've been looking for that front headlights/grille setup. Thanks.
I'm looking for 79 Corona parts. Please share the contact info for the Junk Yards.