Los Angeles is a car enthusiast’s paradise. Oh sure, sure, the traffic can be diabolical. But look what it’s got going for it:
- Amazing and iconic driving roads nearby, like Mulholland Drive and Angeles Crest Highway.
- No snow and very little rainfall in general, making the climate great for driving and conducive to the ongoing survival of old cars.
- Old cars. Everywhere.
I was literally returning my rental car when I spotted two classics directly outside the Enterprise lot. In fact, there was actually another classic on the street that I had to forego photographing. That’s LA for you.
During my time in Los Angeles – around three days, all up – I drove past more classic cars than I photographed. I saw old Darts and a Plymouth Duster. I saw bustleback Sevilles and Chevrolet Celebrities. I saw so many old Mercedes-Benzes I lost count. You eventually just have to concede that you can’t stop and photograph every car. The other classic on Bellanca Avenue was a mint condition 1987-91 Toyota Camry wagon in a deep chocolate brown. It looked fantastic but I didn’t snap it. My two weeks in Europe left me with what I call palace fatigue, when the beauty and grandeur of all the palaces and castles no longer astonishes you and you take it for granted. My time in Los Angeles left me with Curbside Classic fatigue or at the least an understanding that you can only pull over to the side of the road so many times…
I get a real thrill out of seeing a bone-stock old car, particularly if it’s a car that was once common but has now mostly vanished. But this little Toyota Tercel has been modified in such a charming way, I had to take photos. That and I’d literally never seen a Tercel of this generation, Australia missing out on this particular model and, in fact, all Tercels bar the 4WD wagon.
Toyota’s North American operations were quick to embrace the new front-wheel-drive models coming out of Japan. Arriving in North America in 1980, the FWD Tercel was sold concurrently with the more conventional, rear-wheel-drive Starlet from 1981 until 1984. But the Tercel won out and would continue to be sold for four more generations.
Rather more exotic was the Porsche 914 parked just down the street. Mind you, many Porsche enthusiasts spent years deriding this as “not a real Porsche” because of Porsche’s collaboration with Volkswagen in developing the 914 and its VW-Porsche badging in other markets. But this was no Beetle with a Porsche badge slapped in, instead being a dashing, mid-engine targa.
There’s not much I can say about the 914 that hasn’t been covered already in Robert Kim’s article. And our own GeelongVic is the proud owner of a beautiful red example. I was surprised to see a 914 in person and even more surprised it wasn’t painted in some lurid factory color!
Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a 914 in person. I was in Los Angeles after all, a city where there’s always some classic lurking around the corner. Or three. And I’m kicking myself because yet again I visited Los Angeles (I’m up to four visits now) and again it was a short visit. I used to think I’d hate Los Angeles and each time I go I end up loving it more. Next time, I’ll stay longer. And if you run out of things to do in LA, just rent a car and go driving down random streets. You’re guaranteed to find something interesting.
Photographed in Westchester, CA on September 29, 2018.
I love that 914, black really shows off the subtle curves better on it than any other color I’ve seen it in, and also matches the targa bar buttresses(b pillars?) since they’re black regardless of exterior color, giving a more complete silhouette. If Porsche purists want to call this a VW, fine, but then don’t get mad when I retort that a 356 is a chopped Beetle!
I don’t think I have ever seen a Tercel of this generation in person, probably another casualty of midwest winters and likely less market penetration in the first place at the time. The front end looks a whole lot like the early Mercury Topaz
Also true in Las Vegas and most of the desert Southwest, especially in less affluent areas. Where the rust monster does not live, 20-40 year old daily drivers, while not exactly common, are common enough that my CC-o-meter barely moves the needle anymore.
Several times a week, I drive past a well-kept ’71-’72 Vega coupe parked on the street. In most of the US, that would drop the jaw of a curbivore. Here, it’s just a neat old car.
Say, are you referring to a brown one parked near McCarran Airport? If so, spoiler alert! Haha. It dropped my jaw and I took a bunch of photos, eager to surprise our fellow curbivores.
Yes, I refer to a car parked within spitting distance of McCarran. Has to be the same car, although the color strikes me as tan.
I have made a couple of trips to SoCal in my adulthood and agree with what you say. Cool cars are everywhere. I wish I had made one of those trips after I started writing for CC.
Another way to kill time is to pull up the local Craigslist and drool over the cars for sale. Rust-free cars that sellers in the midwest would demand crazy money for are just ordinary old cars out there.
My only Tercel experience was one owned by a young attorney in a prior office. The car started burning oil quite severely with a big blue cloud that followed it everywhere. My guess is that she never bothered to change the oil.
If it was a 91-94 Tercel then the car had the 3E Engine(1.5l) which was a big turd. It was well known for valve steam seals and stuck oil rings which would cause a big blue cloud of smoke
We are not without our rusted cars in California. You have obviously never seen many beach cars. Those that have hung out around Mission Beach and Pacific Beach in San Diego. Or, Palos Verde, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Venice, or Santa Monica in Los Angeles. Then there is Santa Cruz and Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Cars and trucks rust in those areas. Should have seen the 1971 Chevy truck, in 1975, of a college friend that hung out in Palos Verde and Mission Beach. Bad!
As CA native, now living in coastal SoCal, I have certainly become immune to the site of 30 year old cars in daily service. They are everywhere here.
Just this past month, a neighbor wanted to unload his late father’s 1985 F150. It was a no option work truck, in baby blue, with 4.9 (300cid) carbureted six and 4 speed manual. With only 86,000 miles on the clock, 4 good tires, NO rust, anywhere, and no dents–though it had the kind of patina that would make Paul consider retiring his yellow ’66) He got a grand total of $2600 for it, running perfectly! It is now in daily revenue service, used by a very hard working Mexican mow ‘n blow gardener. That hombre got a great truck for a pittance! (Yes, wishing I bought it….)
I know that in Chicago for example, it would be easy to put $2600 into rust repair alone on a 1985 F150 . Why would anyone do that when they could get a WHOLE rust free 1985 F150 in SoCal? I know many have tried, but there MUST be a way for some smart dealer to profit from the abundance of rust-free CA iron for sale in the rust belt.
I think you’d need to be running your own car carrier operation to make any money, given how expensive it is to transport them.
I did hear of a friend of a friend who would bring a Ford Ranger home every time they came back to Minnesota to visit, and would sell it for a profit – even rusty Rangers sell for silly money here.
There is nothing special about that truck so it sold for what I would expect such a truck would sell for in Los Angeles. I would have not offered higher than that myself whether in L.A. or the Bay Area.
Ah the 1980-82 Tercel
My folks had one that they bought brand new. It was a silver coupe with a black interior with no AC that my dad bought to use as a commuter car. It was miserable to sit in in the summer with those black vinyl seats. It is the reason I never wear shorts as I got in and burned the shit out of my legs one summer.
It got good gas mileage with the 4 speed manual transmission coupled to the 60hp engine that was in it.
I still have one of the keys for the thing. It had a neat feature. The trunk lock was set up so that you would not have to keep putting the key into the lock in order to open the car if you were carrying a bunch of stuff. you put the key in the trunk lock and turned it one way then you could open it by just turning the black plastic part of the lock.
This allowed you to shut the trunk but not lock it so you could open it with out the key.
I also remember the ball shifter knob and the FM radio add on to the the factory AM radio.
As nice of a car as it was, I never understood why my folks did not simply buy a Corolla instead. They had plenty of money back.
The lamented NUMMI Nova (a Toyota product) also had the trunk lock which could be set up to open with just a twist of the cylinder knob. It was a neat feature which I wish was still in use today.
The most interesting thing about the first-gen Tercel (besides being Toyota’s first foray into FWD) was the “thumbprint” taillights on the hatchback.
I always thought that the most interesting thing about the Tercel was it’s use of a longitudinal engine/transmisson in a FWD Japanese car. I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think Toyota used that layout ever again and I don’t know that any other Japanese manufacturer used it.
Not to mention the all-glass hatch.
IIRC the Tercel had the longitudinal engine in the second generation as well but switched to transverse for either the third or fourth. I know my ’95 (first of the last) had a sidewinder.
Even relative to the rest of coastal California, LA is an amazing place for car spotting. It has all the climate and geographic benefits described herein, in addition to a robust car culture with great history and variety.
This past Sunday afternoon in Westlake Village/Thousand Oaks was sunny and mild. In the short drive home from church, I spotted : Porsche GT3 RS, Ferrari 430 Scuderia, McLaren 650s, and a Bentley Bentayga….a ’70 Chevelle, and ’67 427 Vette with sidepipes. Lastly, a geezer in his ’28-29 Model A.
Yes, car culture is a thing here.
But. it’s already damn crowded, rent/real estate is crazy expensive, and the taxes are brutal
@ Howard Kerr – The Acura Vigor and Legend both combined front wheel drive with longitudinally mounted engines – the Legend came with a V6, while the Vigor had a 5-cylinder. I’m not sure about other Japanese makes.
First-generation RL, too.
As a former Acura owner (an Integra), I am embarrassed to admit that I forgot that Honda also used longitudinal engines in a few FWD cars.
my dad had a white 82 sedan, been probably almost a decade since I’ve seen one of these.
Another excellent article, with very nice pics William.
I miss seeing bright yellow cars. However homely many found the original Tercel, I thought they were cute, and well packaged. I liked the whole Toyota lineup at the time. Toyota was already topping owner surveys for quality workmanship, now surpassing leading US brands like Lincoln and Cadillac at the time.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a Tercel of that vintage here in Ontario – our heavily salted roads saw to that. I can imagine myself going a little crazy over old cars if I ever visit L.A.. It’s a good thing I shoot digital – otherwise I’d burn through film like nobody’s business.
Living in Santa Monica, I can walk out my front door and see CCs throughout the neighborhood. Moving to SoCal from the Rustbelt in 1972, this kind of experience was initially mind-bending. But you soon get used to it. These days I usually don’t take pictures, sometimes to my regret. Even so it remains a pleasure seeing people enjoy their older cars and sometimes you run across really stunning examples like this 1964 Grand Prix.
Another example more similar to the Tercel: friends just took their 1979 Datsun 310 out of service after 39 years and over 400K miles on the original engine. Says a lot for both the SoCal climate and the quality of the car.
The greater LA area is likely the only place on earth where you can see pretty much every old car ever made AS WELL AS every new car available on the US market in the year it was introduced, i.e. as a brand new car no matter how exotic/rare etc it is. Automobile heaven for any gearhead.
Thanks for the reminiscence. My 1982 Tercel sedan was my very first new car. I purchase it in summer 1982 from Tansky in Columbus Ohio., Just north of Ohio State campus on High Street. Only options were FM radio and “cold kit”. 14 percent new car loans that summer. Also dealer markups of $1000 to $1500 on Civics. Would have preferred a Corolla Sport Coupe but I was $1700 short.
Listened to a lot of Fleetwood Mac in that car.
My brother needed a new car in 1980. I’d bought his 390 Torino GT from him and this time he wanted something good on gas. He started out looking at the Civic, the Tercel and the Rabbit but all of them had Additional Dealer Markups of over $1000. The Tercel also had a “mandatory” sunroof, with an additional $1000 price. (Maybe that’s where my dislike of sunroofs originates…)
Between the ADMs and the “mandatory” sunroofs (why rustproofing wasn’t “mandatory” is beyond me, those turds needed it) and 18% interest rates, I’m amazed anyone bought those cars.
He finally settled on a Dodge (Mitsubishi) Colt that he drove for five years. It was the same form factor as the Civic, but came with Chrysler financing which was favorable for a recent college grad and virtually no ADM. He probably would have driven it longer, but it was damaged in an accident and it never drove the same after the repairs were completed.
I bought my ’78 Scirocco in 1981….I was “lucky” to get a 16% loan (on a used car) from my local credit union…but it turns out my Manager was the president of the credit union…I think he pulled some strings on my behalf. The interesting thing is I later worked for another large (Fortune 100) company that strongly discouraged their managers from being officers (in the credit union started for that company)…guess different policies for different (large) companies.
One of my co-workers bought a 1980 Sunbird…he got a 21% loan.
I guess I got around the price gouges buying used…but of course that’s when the inflation was so high that some people were selling their used cars (like Toyotas) for more than they bought them, after a year or two of ownership…but maybe they had to deal with the (price gouging) dealers buying them new…but still made out due to the very high inflation at that time.
I had a 7 year old Datsun that I sold to get the Scirocco…it had a fair amount of rust, especially on the “cowcatcher” bumpers, and some aluminum trim that was coming off…but because economy cars were popular, I was able to sell it for (what I considered) a good price…even after a test drive from hell, where trim fell off the car…the guy bought it for the full price I wanted for it.
I remember when the Tercel was new, one guy at work bought one when they first came out (not many FWD Toyotas back then).. My parents arranged for me to get a Toyota rental car ..probably in early 1983…it was a Starlet, and has the distinction for me of being the only rental car I’ve ever gotten with a manual transmission…I think it was even through Hertz…in my days (I worked at Hertz for a couple of years about 5 years earlier)…even small cars came with Automatics, even in the late 70’s. I really enjoyed the Starlet…but believe it or not I haven’t owned a car with an automatic since I sold the Datsun in 1981 (it was my last Automatic.
For a long time now (35 years) I’ve lived in the sunbelt…in Texas, not California, so you would maybe think that older cars would also be common here, but I don’t find that to be the case…there are some, but not as many as I would normally expect….thinking about it, I think it more has to do with the large influx of people from other areas…unless they have a special interest car, they likely don’t bring their older cars with them when they move here…so you tend to have a lot of newer cars. We don’t have a problem with rust, except sunburt paint and cars that have lost their weatherstripping (rubber degrades quickly here and turns crispy) if not replaced, which of course is hard to find on an older car (I once resorted to ordering a large piece of weatherstrip from a northern salvage yard, it was the semi-rigid piece that started at the A pillar of my A2 Golf and went all the way to the hatch (looked like a large hockey stick) and it couldn’t be folded since it had a soft metal spine that helped it maintain its shape…couldn’t find any local source that was in even as good shape as my existing one…they had all turned “crispy” by the sun).
Those early Tercels were cooooool.