Junkyard Find: 1987 Toyota Corolla GT-S FX16

by Murilee Martin

Published: June 12th, 2012

junkyard find 1987 toyota corolla gt s fx16

Rear-wheel-drive AE86 Corolla GT-Ss are worth bucks these days, and you won’t see them in low-priced self-serve wrecking yards. The AE82 front-wheel-drive Corolla GT-S hasn’t held its value so well, and so examples do show up on The Crusher’s doorstep. We saw this white ’87 in California last year, and now I’ve found this silver ’87 in Colorado.

I’ve never owned an FX16, but it’s one of those classic 80s cars that I keep meaning to shop for.

Built at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California, the FX16 was a worthy competitor to the Civic Si and VW GTI.

It was more awkward-looking than the VW and the Honda, what with its Toyota-stolid angular lines, but the 4A engine (shared with the MR2 as well as the AE86) made up for the already-dated-looking-in-’87 lines.

So, another FX16 GT-S about to leave the planet. I’m hoping a few solid examples will still be around when I decide to buy.

#1980s #1987 #1987ToyotaCorolla #1987ToyotaCorollaGT-S #Corolla #Denver #DownOnTheJunkyard #FX16 #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Toyota #Nummi #ToyotaCorolla #ToyotaCorollaGT-S

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.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments

Join the conversation

3 of 23 comments

Gmrn on Jun 14, 2012

Ahhh. It does my heart good to see this version of my old car. I bought my red '87 in 1997 off of the original (female) owner for $1300. I knew it needed a clutch (and had 170K on the odo) but otherwise it ran great. It was pretty impressive when the 2nd set of intake runners opened up @4700 rpm IIRC. That car was absolutely unfazed by a dozen-or-so redline runs every day, for the 2 years I had it. Great seats. Look closely and you see a subtle styling detail hidden among the boy-racer body kit pieces...a small power dome on the passenger side of the hood. I originally thought it was to clear the intake, but nope.

Like Reply
BrasilianRican on Aug 18, 2012

At the editor when u write these articles about these cars you find can you put the junkyards name where you find them in . Cuz I could sure use some parts off either 1 of theses to FX 16's . I owne A 87 FX 16 GTS just like the white 1 in this article and im in a FX 16 group thats always looking for parts for these . Thanks

Like Reply
- Dewalt on Sep 23, 2012
  
  hi, just responding about you looking for 87 FX GTS parts I have two of them one dismantled and other one whole has 1.6 4Age motors and three speed automatic/overdrive/ECT control whole car has 172k,? and dismantled one 135,000 both have good transmission and one head gasket bad if interested email me but I'm located in northern Wisconsin my email address is handymanhammond@yahoo.com
  
  Like

Recent Comments

GregLocock Not as my primary vehicle no, although like all the rich people who are currently subsidised by poor people, I'd buy one as a runabout for town.
Jalop1991 is this anything like a cheap high end German car?
HotRod Not me personally, but yes - lower prices will dramatically increase the EV's appeal.
Slavuta "the price isn’t terrible by current EV standards, starting at $47,200"Not terrible for a new Toyota model. But for a Vietnamese no-name, this is terrible.
Slavuta This is catch22 for me. I would take RAV4 for the powertrain alone. And I wouldn't take it for the same thing. Engines have history of issues and transmission shifts like glass. So, the advantage over hard-working 1.5 is lost.My answer is simple - CX5. This is Japan built, excellent car which has only one shortage - the trunk space.