Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Cressida

by Murilee Martin

Published: December 6th, 2012

I always notice the Cressida when I see an example in a wrecking yard, and the last two years have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of Toyota’s pre-Lexus rear-drive luxury sedan going to The Crusher. I suppose that means that the balance between real-world value and cost to fix mechanical problems has finally tilted against the Cressida. We’ve seen this ’80, this ’84, this ’87, this ’89, and this ’92 in the Junkyard Find Series so far, and now we’re going to go all Malaise Era with today’s ’82.

I found this car, in subdued Ignore Me Red, languishing in a Northern California self-service yard back in September.

Only 123,760 miles on the clock, which implies either long-term storage or a driving-to-church-on-Sundays-only long-term owner.

Toyota really needs to bring back emblems like this one.

The 5M-E L6 engine for 1982 made a respectable-for-its-day 116 horsepower. Yes, golf carts have more than that nowadays. What of it?

By 1990, just about every car had some form of electronic fuel injection. In 1982, however, EFI was still fairly exotic.

#1980s #1982 #1982ToyotaCressida #California #Cressida #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Malaise #MalaiseEra #Toyota #ToyotaCressida #MurileeMartin

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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2 of 41 comments

Acuraandy on Dec 06, 2012

My kindergarten teacher had one of these in this color. Talk about a blast from the past...lulZ

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Jayzwhiterabbit on Dec 08, 2012

Seriously, all these fond memories of a Cressida?!?? Wow, apparently my childhood wasn't as boring as I thought. Dude, people made fun of these cars when they were new....there was nothing "desirable" about a crappy Toyo Cressida back in the day. Wow!

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