Dru and her 1971 Corolla.
(first posted 6/18/2013) There has been some discussion on CC about the mustard yellow that was popular in the early ‘70s on imports, and some domestics such as Jeep. I was going to do a quickie post on the color, but there was more to the story, and that’s what I’m going to tell.
It was 1971. My older sister Dru had given me the job of helping her pick out her first new car, so I began making rounds to the dealerships in Westport, Wilton and Norwalk, Connecticut. I drove everything in her price range. Pintos-cheap interior, really bad dynamics under braking on bumpy roads (which were not hard to find in CT), plus I bent a shift rod on a mildly quick shift; Vegas-too expensive and tractor like; 510 Datsuns, interesting but out of budget; Renault R10-let me count the reasons; Gremlins-dealer wanted me to take a Gremlin home for the weekend for Dru to drive, but too crude; and then I stopped late one Friday night at a new dealership in Westport, the Toyota shop.
I walked in totally bored with the process, and looked at a new Corona sitting on the floor. I was the only customer in the shop and there was only one salesman. He was honest enough to ask me if I wanted the pitch. Since I was there, I said, OK, let me have it. I wasn’t really attracted to the dumpy little Corona, and it was beyond my sister’s budget, but I really liked what this guy was saying, and what I was seeing. The Corona was built with a level of quality I found lacking in the other cars I had test driven. I brought Dru by the dealership the next morning and we test drove a Corona. The steering was heavy, numb, and the understeer excessive, and it cost more that what Dru was willing to go into hock for. Then the salesman said he did have something in the $1900 price range that Dru was in, and it was a Corolla. In mustard yellow. Bingo!
1971 Toyota Corolla, 1200 cc pushrod
The Corolla was smaller, less expensive, and came equipped with an AM radio, full carpeting, full wheel covers, and a very slick shifting 4-speed. The steering wasn’t as onerous as on the Corona. Sure, the tires were only 12-inches in diameter, but we weren’t shopping for a corner carver, just a decent daily driver. Plus the thing was put together like a watch. The underhood detailing was incredible. Dru bought the Corolla that morning. Only one choice-color. The dealer had two Corollas, one in battleship gray, and the mustard colored one you see here. Not a hard decision.
Dru, the ham, and the family fleet
Dru is posing in front of three quarters of our family’s automotive stable in 1972. My dad’s ‘71 Opel 1900; my ‘72 Fiat 128 (also in mustard, Positano Yellow); and Dru’s Corolla in the back. My mother drove a new ‘72 Olds Cutlass Supreme with the heavy duty suspension which she leased for her real estate business. She was probably out on this bright Saturday morning showing houses.
My dad’s 1900 (CC here) was a great car. I probably fit in that car better than any other car that I have ever owned. Ergonomics isn’t a precise science. If human beings all came in the same size, there would be no need for ergonomics, or human factors. But Opel seemed to have used my morph as a template. Plus the thing had a thick steering wheel rim for its time which I loved, and long legs. Early one morning in rural New York (I was headed for Columbus, OH) I came upon a new Chevy Monte Carlo, probably running a 305. He decided that he didn’t want to be passed. We were on a four lane so I simply matted the Opel, and walked away from him. Granted, slowly, but my 105 mph was a couple of mph better than he could muster. Suck that Monte Carlo!
In 1974 Brougham owners were willing to trade even-up for these cars
Dru’s Corolla lasted longer than my 128 (the Fiat was totaled by a Datsun 510 on an icy road) but wasn’t as much fun to drive. Plus non-double amputees could actually sit in the back seat of the Fiat without feeling undue persecution, something not possible in the Corolla, or later, my wife’s Datsun B210 (what a load of excrement that was!)
So life in the early ‘70s was good, even with mustard yellow paint that the younger generation finds abhorrent, and the puny 1100, 1200 and 1900 cc engines that we had to drive. The engine in my Impreza is only two liters but it sure can rack up some impressively expensive speeding tickets. I just wish it were the tangerine orange pearl that the jacked up XV Crosstrek is available in. Make it easier for the cops to see.
Wow that Corolla is a very rare car here now these are the cars Toyota lost immense ‘face’ over they rusted so fast it was nearly watchable good little bombs though and mechanicly nearly unbreakable. I drove a 71 Corona in Aussie their dry climate meant little rust inland where I bought mine and yes the turn in was nearly nonexistant, ride comfort pretty rough but it coped with fairly brutal treatment on Aussie gravel roads admirably. One night I tried to take a corner at far more than the recommended velocity and took ou 2 chain of boundary fence fetching up against a cow it drove home in a cloud of steam and bent panels. One used radiator later it was good as new and ran for another 6 months untill the crude repairs were judged unroadworthy and it was scrapped, apparently a fence wire bonnet catch may not hold, rubbish I got it from the fence I hit it worked as well as Toyotas effort.
I had forgotten about 12 inch tires. They sold for something like $10 each, and were always the price leaders in the newspaper ads. These days 13 and 14 inch are fading away. Back then 70 series were performance tires.
In ’83 or ’84, Car and Driver did a high performance tire test. FWD coupes were popular at the time, so they used a Honda Prelude as one of the test cars along with a RWD Mazda RX7. Both cars wore 185/70R13 tires, and I think they listed a bunch of other common sporty cars that used the same size. In 1972, 70 series tires must have really been something special. Many European sports car shipped on 82 series tires. Early Porsche 911s came fitted with 165R15 tires.
I remember that tire test well. I probably have it, clipped out of the magazine, stored someplace.
Too bad magazines don’t do such comprehensive tests anymore.
The print magazines don’t have the luxury of expendable advertisers anymore. Objectively and subjectively rating tires left them with a couple of really strong tires, a few decent ones, and a few turkeys. These days, chances are it is the low quality brands that are buying ads, and they expect their products to be protected by the magazines as a result.
As I recall, the winner of the C and D tire tests was a German tire made by Phoenix. Lots of gear heads rushed out to by these things only to find out that not only were they expensive, but almost impossible to balance. Phoenix as a brand had a very short life in the US.
Dru’s Corolla exhibited normal rust for the cars in that time, but it was far better than my wife’s ’74 B210. You could hear that thing rust and we lived in the south! Paul might claim otherwise, but Maryland was and is south of the Mason-Dixon, but still found ways to use salt way out of proportion to the amount of snow we got.
Jurisdictions in Maryland and the state highway administration continue to use a lot of salt. As in you’ll often not be able to see asphalt beneath the thick white crust after a snow storm that doesn’t quite pan out.
I’ve never claimed otherwise…Marylanders freak out when it snows. Back in the day, they all just mostly stayed home at the first sight of a decent snowfall. Which made it fun to go driving around Baltimore in the fresh snow in my Beetle. And yes, cars did rust there as a consequence of the salt. Even one of my Beetles had the classic rust through just ahead of the rear fender, on the body side.
Rain and normal humidity ate these cars here and all Japanese cars of the era there are nearly none left here because of that, we dont have salted roads the issue was JDM paint standards they dont expect cars to last there we did. New Zealand market Japanese cars are for the most part galvanised at least Toyotas are, that company values its market share and gave up selling crap long ago.
I recently helped my brother shop 13s for his 79 accord. Limited choices like looking for a rare stone. I remember in the 80s all the choices from Pirelli, Yokohama, Michelin, bridgestone in 12s for My Fiesta and 13s for my Mazda GLC.
When I played football in Jr HIgh the coaches used to make us pull tires. The 15s and 16s were like pulling lead sleds. Now a days they are donuts.
“So Dru, about that crease in the fender of your new car . . . . ”
An excellent trip back in time, when you could buy a well-made yet inexpensive car that came in bright colors. Personally, the choice between the battleship gray and this yellow would have been harder for me. But then, yellow has never been one of my faves.
Also, while this color (and the gold on the Nova from yesterday) would not have been my favorites, I lament that those who do like them cannot get them.
Your family was quite unusual, with a driveway almost full of imports. I recall a cousin and her husband showing up in a new red Subaru in 1971. Nobody in the family had ever heard of a Subaru before. Most of us silently wondered what had possessed the guy to sell his 67 LeMans hardtop for this little tin can. Funny, Subaru is still here and Pontiac isn’t.
Small cars are getting good again. Check out the Mazda2; they are well made and come in an “Electric Treefrog” color that I find appealing. Also the Fiat 500, they drive well, have surprising pep and come in real colors, even brown.
I would have bought my Subi in the Electric Treefrog Green that the Mazda 2, Camaro, and Dodge Challenger are available in, but the only color I could countenance on a daily basis from Subaru was the boring-assed metallic gray that I bought. My wife had had an older Impreza in this same color so I knew I could live with it, but I wasn’t thrilled. There are some killer colors available today, just not for what I want to drive.
I don’t know about the Fiat 500. Last year we attended the Cadillac show in Florida and I got together with a friend of mine who had an 84 Eldorado convertible. His wife and daughter attended and they rented a Fiat so they could run around while the car was parked. I rode in it once and it rode and drove like a gof cart. It looks a bit like a Hershey kiss in the brown shade.
Well, compared to a Cadillac of course the ride is harsh. I test drove a couple when they were first out and was really impressed. They are fun to drive, but yeah maybe not so much for the passenger. The salesperson seemed a little distressed when I managed to chirp the tires on a hard 1-2 shift. One hundred horsepower is plenty for a car like that. they are a little roomier than the original VW Beetle, a car 20 million people thought was big enough to buy new.
I’ll admit, I hate mustard yellow, but LOOOVE avocado/puke green and harvest orange.
I like the Toyota and Fiat colors shown here and the version that Ford had. But I can’t stand the Chevy version on the Nova from yesterday, which has more gold or green or something in it.
I’d say that’s more custard than mustard, and I like it! I also enjoy seeing the old CT plate. I saved the one my grandparents had from 1957-97.
Here’s a little 70s Gulden’s goodness. (Actually, a lot of it.)
My wife’s family, also originally from Westport, talk fondly of a ’69 Corona nicknamed “the yellow peril” for it’s particular shade of paint. Good east coast Catholic liberals, no racial slight intended. They might have even bought it at the same Toyota dealer.
When did America really switch over to FM?
Don’t know. My ’62 Ford’s AM radio didn’t work and I saw no need to fix it. When the AM/FM Cassette was stolen from my ’78 Rabbit in San Francisco, I got bummed out and decided that I liked the exhaust sound more than the crappy music that was on the air at the time. By the time I bought my dad’s ’88 Olds Touring Sedan in ’94 I was into spoken word. Today I listen to CD ROM mysteries on my long haul trips, or I Heart Radio beamed up from my iPhone, again, spoken word.
My father’s 1970 Continental Mark III (not an inexpensive car) had an AM radio. Dad’s ’72 Mark IV had AM/FM/Stereo. I know that the AM/FM was optional in my 63 Fleetwood. My car had the AM signal seeker, but I believe I recall replacing it with an AM/FM unit out of a second Cadillac I was given for parts. I recall my parents going to FM in the house in the mid to late 60s. Teenager stations seemed to hit FM in the early 70s, at least in my area.
I roughly equate the death of AM as the mainstream band with the death of disco. At least where I was, by the early 80s when everyone starting listening to synth and pop it was all on FM.
About 83 84 I was still driving my 71 Nova to night school. AM radio, I remember my favorite music station switched to talk radio in the middle of my commute to school.
It depends on location. Some cities were earlier than others. For example, Most of Washington, DC’s AM frequency allocations and patterns were set well before the big expansion of its suburbs in Maryland and Northern Virginia. Most AM stations serving DC simply don’t cover a lot of the population at night, so it became an FM city pretty quickly. In other areas, where factors like population growth, topography, etc. favored AM stations more, it took longer, with AM stations still pulling in decent ratings (albeit with talk, not music these days) in several major markets.
Definitely depended on location. In Indianapolis, the switch to FM came about 5 days after WNAP signed on in July, 1968. And yes, it really happened that quickly and decisively, though AM rockers limped on for several years.
In the major cities FM became mainstream around 1970, mainly because of the virtuous circle of:
a) Richer and longer-form popular music,
b) Better stereos to hear it at home, and
c) Affordable FM stereo in the car.
All thanks to good, cheap and reliable transistors emerging in the ’60s. No static at all!
Regulations helped to encourage music’s move to FM. Starting in 1967, the FCC prevented broadcasters from using their FM signals to merely duplicate their AM programming, which had been typical until then. The change in the law forced broadcasters to come up with new programming to fill up their FM slots, so music became a popular choice, which led to the proliferation of album-oriented rock and other music formats.
With all of the new programming that became available, it was just a matter of time before the car radio makers would make FM radios.
I’m going to say sometime around 1980 for the FM band to take over from AM.
But it was introduced in in 1962 as I’ve got a 1964 Zenith table-top radio with AM/FM and have seen a factory AM/FM radio in a 68 T-bird
My ’77 Chevelle had an AM radio in it when I got it, I took it out intact and working and installed a slightly newer AM/FM/Cassette stereo from a ’79 Buick.
What fascinating answers!
As with most techno-things, Australia got it later. It started here in 1972 supposedly, but through the seventies the AM stations had all the teen music, FM seemed to be all classical or highbrow stuff, so I never paid much attention to its availability in cars.
I think it’s neat that you took pictures of all your cars, most people didn’t do that much, and all you have are glimpses of the car in the background of family photos.
That Opel sedan looks like an anorexic version of 70s Nova sedan.
I am glad I am too young to have experienced the yellows oranges and browns of the 70s.
Foreign cars really have grown in size over the years. I know my 13 Subaru Legacy is much bigger than when it first came out.
The Opel was a quite comfortable space for four individuals. It handled and stopped very well, something that could not be said of any Nova of that era.
Color, of course, is subjective. Subaru gives you a choice of light interiors with some interesting exterior colors, or more conservative colors with dark interiors. By the time you get down to the Impreza level, there isn’t a whole lot of “buy me” available.
That innocent little Opel got a V8 engine stuffed into it in Australia it was quite a race car in its day as the Holden Torana.
My aunt and uncle got a Datsun B210 coupe after the first oil crisis hit, to take off some of the financial pressure of filling the tanks of their Electra and LTD. It was a revolting mustard color, but it had a distinctly orange cast to it. I don’t remember much about it other than that it was a terrible car. Oh, the ’70s…
Not their car, but the right color: http://flipacars.com/Datsun/Datsun-B210/gallery.html?pic=5#gp
The only thing that I liked about my wife’s B210 was the color-it matched by Fiat 128. Otherwise it was garbage.
Love the period pics! Always cool to see. I try to picture some of the cars I’ve owned from that period in the background to put them into context. Thanks for posting.
I’ve driven all three. Never cared for the Toyota much, loved the Fiat 128, absolutely adored the Opel 1900. I really feel we’re missing something nowadays that people consider cars like that little penalty boxes. Quite frankly, I feel the average American needs to lose about thirty pounds so they can fit in cars like that again.
And also, I still get the knee jerk reaction that is a motor is two liters, it better have six cylinders. Proper size for a four is somewhere between 1000 and 1800 cc’s.
Actually, today’s big fours with balance shafts, like the Camry’s and such, make excellent engines; better torque curve than a six, more efficient, and plenty of power. Big fours rock…
And when one gets down to 1000cc, I think a triple has advantages too (same ones), as long as it’s balanced with shafts.
Quite right, modern fours are crazy-powerful, yet still smoother, compared to way back when. Comparison: ’70s Honda CVCC 1488 rating: 60hp; their latest 1.8: 140. Digital engine controls have made all the difference. The microcontroller industry solved the Malaise Era’s problem. I met a coworker who used to work at Ford; he showed me how thick the Taurus’s software listing was.
I don’t think personal obesity is the problem, for a beer-belly doesn’t impose much on interior dimensions; rather, buyers simply don’t want tiny cars anymore, unless they’re “chic” like the 500 or Mini.
I don’t think anyone in the market for a new car is going to buy a teeny thing when a good car like a Civic or Mazda 3 or Cruze can be driven home for really cheap. Really, there has hardly a car in the world that isn’t good now since they are all made he same way. I mean the payments on these things is like $300 for a/c and the works. They’ve never been cheaper. I wouldn’t buy a Corolla 1200 sized car when I can have a much larger and more comfortable one.
P.S. I should have compared the Fit’s 1.5L engine instead: 117hp, almost double the old CVCC at the same displacement.
Remember that those old subcompacts had torturous rear seats compared to their modern successors.
So I am guessing the Toyota was purchased at Flag Motors and the Opel from the Buick Dealership, (Larry Terino?) that is now Honda of Westport.
I drove a 1971 Fiat 128 in high school. It was a fun car and much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside.
My first car purchased by me (used)was a 1974 Toyota Corolla. It was running perfectly when I dropped it off at LaJoie’s after purchasing a brand new 1985 Honda Civic from Honda of Westport.
Ha ha! That’s it, Flag Motors! In 1971 nobody knew what Toyotas were. I’m not sure where my dad bought his Opel but I doubt that there were multiple Opel dealers in Norwalk at the time.
And I, sadly, dropped my 1960 Plymouth off at LaJoie’s in 1971. They offered me five bucks for my beloved Felicia, but I countered with “its got a new muffler and Monroe load leveler shocks”. Five bucks was the response. So with five bucks in my pocket my friend and I drove to The Captain’s in Norwalk, bought a large pizza and a six pack, and actually got some change in return.
OK, Mr Ed. My mother bought me a three piece suit from your establishment when I got a job with CBS Labs in 1970. When the Vietnam War wound down, we in the manufacturing division (one of the three CBS Lab locations in Stamford) were told “sayonara!”. Bummer. Had I known how much that suit had cost, I could have bought a new Fiat for that amount.
My Grandfather’s 1970 Corona was that color too.
Also, my favorite Corolla drag car is that fetching (?) shade.
Check out 1:52, the left front wheel is just off the ground for the whole quarter…
Don’t think for a second that Mercedes was immune to this…
Remembering my beloved Datsun Honeybee in Mustard Yellow. I did the head gasket in the garage. Felt like mower maintenance.
Very cool! I love the period photos and count me in as a fan of the color. Ochre C-10, yes please! And even better on a Toyota. Bummer these all faded into iron oxide plies by now…
Don’t know much about 128s but Fiat 124s were some of the best Fiats ever made. I think they were about the same.
128 was FWD. 124 was RWD and slightly larger.
No Opel Kadett or Datsun 1200 considered?
I drove a 1974 Datsun pickup in high school that was a honey mustard color, which my Grandma aptly named “shit brindle yeller”. Sadly, I don’t have many pictures of the truck, even though I put 80-100k miles on it in high school (Yes. I almost never stopped driving when class wasn’t in session… and sometimes even when it was).
That’s mind boggling. There must be very few people in the US who ever drove that many miles while in high school, and none in the entire rest of the universe.
Bought a new Toyota Hilux4 spd p/u from Schaefer & Strohminger in Dundalk MD in 1973 in that same hideous yellow, it seemed ok then, but hate it now. It rode hard, bounced on bumps when not loaded, was noisy, and the interior was cheap and spartan, but it did run strong. After a year of torture I traded it on a new (leftover) SAAB 99L 4 spd in Verona (apple) Green from the local Westminster Pontiac dealer, Bohn Pontiac, who sold them for around only 2 or 3 years after they quickly discovered the limited market for them, but have been in love with SAABs ever since (RIP!).
A bit surprised I didn’t post on this back when new.
My grandmother had a 1972 from new until the mid 2000’s. My grandfather passed and my grandmother had never driven but suddenly found herself in suburbia with no way to get around. My father taught her to drive and they went looking for a small automatic car for her. The Fiat was the other front runner. While test driving at the dealer she fell in love with a mustard yellow 72 Corolla with the hemi and a 2 speed toyoglide automatic. She insisted on taking the demo home despite the dealer not wanting to give up his only auto for test drives.
She did take it home. Gram never really liked driving however and car pooled to work every morning in Hartford. So the car was used for shopping or driving to my parents house one town over. She never really liked getting on the highway so I remember her driving me into the city for something and taking all back roads thru 2 towns. In the end the car became the unofficial spare family car. with myself, my siblings, my parents, my Aunt and cousin, all borrowing it from time to time. Last time I drove it close to 20 years ago I think it only had 72k miles on it. It did have a small amount of rust as gram only had a carport. These cars were sought after by early Japaneses car enthusiasts, in the Hartford area in particular the Dominican and Puerto Rican guys really loved any RWD early Japanese iron. So the family was approached many times with offers to buy before my Aunt finally ended up excepting a few years before gram passed away.
The car always felt very under powered with the auto and it was weird the way it shifted at 15-20mph and never shifted again, but it was stone reliable, my father once mentioned the only thing replaced on it was the brakes and a throttle cable.
The Toyogride. My memory is of them wailing away at the redline- not that Dave’s hand me down appliance had a tacho, then seeming to bog down as it shifted into top. That said, we couldn’t kill that Corona RT 40. And we tried. Fording streams with water over the bonnet……..