Junkyard Find: 1982 Toyota Corolla Liftback
It has become a Corolla Junkyard Find week, with this ’78 Corolla wagon on Monday and this skateboarder-enhanced ’98 Corolla LE sedan yesterday, so I’m going to keep the streak going with today’s find: a Late Malaise Era (yes, I invented the term) E-72 Corolla liftback, which I found late last year in Northern California.
You can tell when a junkyard car wasn’t towed away for unpaid tickets, because it will still have the keys. This was probably a trade-in at a sketchy used-car lot.
Most cars don’t rust in California, but Malaise Era Toyotas find a way. This car might have lived by the beach in San Francisco for a while, though not long enough to look like this terrifyingly salty ’84 Space Van.
The interior doesn’t look too bad here.
Just 69,000 miles? That suggests a blown head gasket followed by 20 years of storage in a driveway.
The 3T-C engine made just 70 horses, but they were reliable horses.
Come on!
The early 1980s were the pinnacle of the “Oh, what a feeling!” era for Toyota ads.
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That these dissolved faster than orange Tang and still got respect shows that the Vega could have rejuvenated GM had they used a proper motor.
A cousin owned one like this , in a nice shade of yellow . Actually I liked the styling of the liftback of the prior generation Corolla better - when they came out the styling was compared to a Volvo 1800 . The above comments about head gasket problems reminded me of when my wife's 1982 Corolla blew its head gasket halfway between Houston and San Antonio on our way to a wedding . IIRC the car only had about 100k miles . Traded in on a Camry after the clutch went out a year later .