Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corona Luxury Edition
As I always mention every time I write about the Toyota Corona, my very first car was a 50-buck ’69 Corona sedan, and so I always notice them. You don’t see many Coronas these days, though I’ve managed to find this ’70 coupe, this ’70 sedan, and this ’79 sedan in wrecking yards during the last year. All three of those cars were in Northern California, but today’s Junkyard Find awaits The Crusher’s jaws in Colorado.
1982 was the last model year for Corona sales in the United States; the front-wheel-drive Camry took over the rear-drive Corona’s role the following year. By current Lexus standards, the luxury in this “Luxury Edition” wasn’t particularly plush.
This AC switch looks very familiar to me, and it should— I used the same switch as the main power control on the Junkyard Boogaloo Boombox, which even now provides music in the Murilee Martin Lifestyle Brand™ garage.
In addition to refrigerated air, the Luxury Edition Corona also came with a rear defroster.
Somebody (probably a Toyota truck owner) has already grabbed the 22R engine out of this car.
Not only does this car come with a Grapic Equalizer With Amplifier, it has a Phase Diffusion button. Ah, the early 1980s!
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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What a strange place to put the cruise control switch.
I have this exact vehicle and I need a taillight lens. Where is it located?