Every “overnight success” has a much larger back story than most people care to know. It’s become pop history that Toyota’s Lexus division took the country by storm immediately after its 1989 introduction. Opportunity, meet preparation. But there was an historical antecedent to the new luxury champion that is fading from our collective memories, and that is today’s CC . Lest we forget, let’s look back at a model that was definitely more than the sum of its parts, the 1986 Toyota Cressida.
Ask just about any Baby Boomer, X’er or Millenial what car epitomizes mechanical excellence and implied social status and a large majority will quickly answer “Lexus”. Now heading into its 23rd year, Toyota’s buy-up division has managed to stake out the high rent district that was once occupied by Cadillac, Mercedes, and in sportier nick, BMW. Aspirational cars, the lot of them.
Detroit , Stuttgart and Munich politely smiled when Toyota announced plans for a new, upmarket marque in 1988 at several tony auto shows and press previews, but they clearly were not worried. The Big Three ( and Fatherland Two) had money, power and friends in the right places (inside the beltway on planet Washington). Besides, in the mid 80’s Detroit, at least, was still trapped in the Japanese=Cheap Crackerboxes mindset that would blind them to the reality that the ground was shifting directly under their feet. The favorable demographic tsunami that was coming in (affluent postwar baby boomers in their peak earning years) could either lift all automotive boats or drown the losers in a sea of red ink and erode the slipping, but still strong, brand loyalty beyond repair.
For Toyota, the calculus was the old crisis/opportunity conundrum: keep building entry level, low margin starter cars and earn a meager return (and soon see competitors from lower wage nations tear off their piece of the sales pie) or go upmarket and build a more expensive car for about the same cost as the price leader. The famed “Toyota System” of production ensured that efficiency would be world class and quality would be second to none. The real challenge would be adapting the final product to Americans tastes and desires enough to justify a premium car price while spreading the fixed costs over mid priced, bread and butter models.
Toyota had gotten a hint that this nascent market existed and could be expanded after it introduced the clean sheet 1981 Cressida. The Cressida had been the company’s flagship model in the U.S. since 1976, and in its first iteration, did solid business, but never threatened any luxo-barge maker with extinction. Obsolescent styling, an old fashioned 2.6 straight six and a high price made the very first Cressida an also ran in the market.
The new for ’81 Cressida however, came as a shock and surprise to the U.S. car market. Quietness, a smooth new fuelie 2.8 and stunning quality showed that A) Toyota could build a luxury car that was a game changer, and B) Detroit’s idea of wallowing, pillow sprung , unreliable gas guzzlers was wildly out of step with the times. It was also about this time that GM dropped its execrable 350 Diesel into a LOT of premium price Buicks and Cadillacs. Those buyers were “persuadable”, to say the least, after wrestling with the cars alarmingly bad quality and GM’s arrogant response.
By this time (1984) Lexus was more than a concept, but less than a car. The project had been greenlighted by top Toyo management, but a lot of hard work lay ahead before a salable product would hit the streets. Toyota was probing for clues to what the public really wanted in a premium car. Sport suspension or boulevard ride? Front wheel or rear wheel drive ? The answers could make or break a billion dollar model. Manual transmission option? BMW had one, even Mercedes installed a few stir –your-own shifters in its sport 190’s. Questions like these needed a test mule to answer and Toyota found that they had one already in production and on the market.
Almost forgotten today, the 1985 Cressida was a sensation in its debut year. Sporting a striking new body and lots of high priced, high margin options like a CD player, electronic shock absorber adjustment and transmission power selection, the angular body fairly screamed sport/luxury. While most other manufacturers were rounding off the corners and melting the edges away, the Cressida (and Maxima) were spare, angular, no nonsense designs with flat planes of sheetmetal, with just enough brightwork and excellent four corner visibility.
There was a manual transmission option, but apparently few buyers opted for this setup. A premium price tag and competition from a striking new Nissan Maxima that also seemed to have been milled out of the same billet of metal didn’t make things any easier for product planners at Toyota City. No matter . The third generation Cressida’s sales jumped by 25%. Toyota was on to something big.
‘The 85-88 generation in many ways marked the high water mark for Toyota’s flagship in the U.S. Its successor model was smooth and refined, but beware of the engine that succeeded the 5M GE. The new 3.0 L 7M GE installed in the ’89 has an appetite for 25 dollar head gaskets…which cost about $1200 labor to install. The same engine was installed in the Supra, and owners report that that model also suffered from the malady. It’s a designed- in flaw.
Lexus wasn’t quite ready for its debut and its success was by no means a sure thing, so Toyota released the fourth generation Cressida for the 1988 model year. Sales held steady in the year before the car was made redundant by the debut of the LS 400 and ES 250, then sank like a stone. By the end (in 1992) ,less than 4000 Cressidas were retailed in the U.S. The kind of buyer that looked at the Cressida was shopping in the dealership next door.
This ’86 is still an everyday driver that we spotted in Rossville,Georgia. The owner reports that it is reliable as sunrise and only needs a regular oil change and basic maintenance to keep its silky 2.8 straight six purring.
Well, after reading Curbside Classics since its inception, I finally decided to register today. So here goes with my first comment! A little-known aspect of this Cressida (or Mark II as it was in Japan) is that the tail-lights are interchangeable. By flipping them upside-down, they fit on the opposite side of the car. Maybe there are different regulations in different countries regarding heights of tail-lights or indicators from the ground? All the Cressidas sold new here in New Zealand have the same tail-lights as the car above, but upside down – as in the photo I’ve attached. Yet the second-hand Japanese imported Mark II versions also available here have the lights the same way up as the car above. I noticed years ago as a child and have carried this useless information with me for years, but can now tell the world! I’m not a Toyota fan, but these Cressidas have always appealed immensely. Great write-up!
Thank you so much for that picture. Welcome to the family, my friend.
I used to have a 74 Toyota Corona MK2 one of Toyotas early attempts at going up market and it was a really good car it ran a 4M 6 and auto went hard and didnt give trouble, Toyota did the cheap stuff well and built good cars they did the expensive stuff even better its all well designed and screwed together properly and painted properly easy to see why they lasted.
I only ever saw one of these in the “wild” (but as a testament to their quality you can find them on auto trader for sale.) My sophmore year of college one of our communications professors had one that was her daily driver. Her car was a ’85-’88 generation and was pale blue with a blue interior. Seeing the car in the late 1990s (and still never having seen a Lexus in my blue collar Midwestern-region) the car struck me as the “Most American” Toyota that I had ever seen. The upright grille and seat coverings made me think Buick – Mercury – Oldsmobile. I would argue that the Cressida never left us and simply became the Avalon.
I never understood the “luxury” Toyota concept; but Toyota, since it got its act together in the 1970s, offered a lot of what was traditionally the Cadillac and Lincoln forte: quality of engineering and assembly; superior customer service; high resale value. It shouldn’t have been surprising that the marketing samurai (is “samurai” singular or plural?) over in Toyota City recognized this and moved to start an up-market brand.
Shouldn’t have been; but so often the Japanese organizations have had a deaf ear to the nuances of the American market, it is in fact remarkable.
The whole thing really is astounding. The Japanese learned what Detroit managed to forget, even as they were rolling in the cash on their techniques. It’s astounding; but it’s fitting; and Toyota earned their place.
Their place, and their profits. I’d never buy a Lexus, for the same reason I’d never buy a tux or a smoking jacket; I’d be laughably out-of-place. A comic poseur. But my daily driver is in fact a Toyota; and while it’s no sports car (or enthusiast’s car of any type) it’s entirely suitable and a great value.
My brother drove one of these briefly- I think it was an 85 and it was in 1989 or so, and it was suprisingly luxurious and individualistic(my own tastes are toward Landyachts), we were not a Japanese car family so it was a very strange experience going from my Dad’s 74 Mercury Cougar XR-7, and my Mom’s 84 Sedan DeVille to this really fancy Toyota. My best friend’s dad had an equivalent Maxima(I was broken hearted when another family friend traded their Chrysler 5th Avenue in for a Maxima “4 Door Sports Car”), and it also was nearly interchangable. They had a fascinating high tech design aesthetic- American luxury was very baroque at the time yet they werent all black perforated leather like the german cars. One thing I dont like about japanese cars of the 1980′s and 1990′s was the feeling like I was sitting on the floor instead of in a seat- but I give them credit for an amazing use of space and good visibility. I always thought the Cressida morphed into the Avalon- I didnt realise it offshot into the Lexus.
In Japan, the Lexus name has never been used. The LS430 is still called the Toyota Celsior, for example. The Japanese luxury brands make first rate used car buys; they have impeccable build quality and have very few mechanical issues.
Actually, Lexus opened up in Japan in 2005:
http://lexus.jp/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/business/worldbusiness/30iht-lexus.html
I always saw it as a bit of a chicken $hit move on Toyota’s part.-I mean there were able to do without the Lexus brand in the JDM for so long-Japanese people are smart enough to know what a good product is regardless of the nameplate, I think. Seems cynically avericious to me.
Don’t forget the most prestigious car in Japan, the Century, is still badged as a Toyota.
Bought a 1984 Cressida Wagon for my wife sometime in 1988. It was not a pampered creampuff but was still in pretty nice condition for a northeast Ohio vehicle. We were both quite fond of the car as it provided plenty of room, reasonable comfort, and outstanding performance in all respects. We had owned several Corollas previously so the Cressida difference was quite apparent to us. We had the car about 4 years until after the automatic transmission failed and was rebuilt. Valentine’s day 1992 I traded it for an 89 Lincoln Continental that certainly was a step up in comfort but unfortunately a giant step backward in reliability. We kept the Lincoln a short 18 months and then bought a new 93 Nissan Maxima that lasted 10 years and 250,000 miles with only routine maintenance. The Maxima still ran like new at 250,000 miles. I agree with Scott that the Japanese luxury cars of that era did not really have very comfortable seating and I too felt like I was kind of sitting on the floor. I also felt that the Cressida became the Avalon.
@chinookfan: The whole sitting on the floor sensation was one of the things I liked least about many of the Japanese makes, especially Honda back then. I always felt like I was wearing a suit about three sizes too small for me.
A former girlfriend had a fairly new Honda Accord back then, and the visibility was very good. But having driven Fiat 128′s and VW Rabbits, I’d known you didn’t need to sit with your legs splayed out underneath the dashboard to see out of the car well. I thought that maybe all of those cars were made for shorter people (I’m 6’1″) and I had too long of an inseam.
If so, the trend continued into the 90′s, when I was selling FourRunners at a Toyota dealership, they were my least favorite car to demo behind the Tercels. I always felt like I was sitting on the floor with my legs way out in those FourRunners. I just didn’t fit into the Tercels (or Paseos), period.
The Avalon was a sales disaster when released down under noone wanted a fat Camry at a grossly inflated price its still on sale but never seen in the wild.
I drove an ’84 once, around 2004. It belonged to a high school friend and I borrowed it for a stretch while my own car was, uh, incapacitated. Total cream puff, despite having been thoroughly flogged by said owner. It was burning oil and needed a headgasket or something, so it was about to get donated to charity. But that car was so solid, so comfortable and so surprisingly quick (for a brown 20 year old Toyota), I nearly offered to buy it off him when I returned it.
The second-gen car really was excellent, especially the ’83-’84, which upgraded to the DOHC 5M-GE, IRS and vented rear discs. And the interior, the ride and the build quality absolutely shamed Detroit’s luxury cars and it wouldn’t have been out of the question to cross-shop this with, say, a 528e.
And the 3rd-gen ’85-’88 was even better, a Lexus in everything but name. And that was the thing-the name. Remember that in the ’80s, particularly in more conservative parts of the country, driving a Toyota was rather cosmopolitan. In the ’70s, it was downright brash. But Toyota wasn’t Mercedes, or Audi, or even Cadillac, so it needed a new image for these top-notch cars to really make an impact.
The ’88 Cressida was 5-series to the ’89 LS400′s 7-series. Two sizes/prices, same attention to detail. And it was better than the original ES250, which was just a rebadged JDM Camry hardtop. But the Lexus was a sensation while the last Cressida tanked. Buyers are shallow like that. Frankly, I think the true successor to the Cressida was not the Avalon, but the Lexus GS: Rear drive, 2JZ straight-six shared with the Supra, it even debuted the year after the Cressida was dropped.
I always thought it was interesting that the Cressida remained a Toyota after Lexus debuted. It would have made a better entry-level car than the Camry-based ES250. It took Lexus a while to sort out that they needed a mid-level model (resulting in the first GS300), and longer still for it to catch on.
My wife-to-be at the time got handed down her Grandfather’s ’86 Cressida in the mid 90′s. We had it for a couple of years and I still wish we had kept it instead of selling it and replacing with with a Mk3 GTI (total crapbox). In my opinion it was a great design, extremely comfortable, wonderful freeway cruiser and great around town as well. Hers was blue with blue interior, although my favorites are the years with the quilted interior look (’87-88??)
These (’85-’88) are getting popular in the Japanese Retro scene, when I was at the Japanese Classic Car Show in Orange County a couple of years ago there were about half a dozen including a couple of the wagons. Apparently it is relatively easy to convert one to stick-shift and most of them had been. They still look great to my eyes, and have a nice squat to their rear ends under acceleration.
By the way, that is an event not to be missed, it is unbelievable how nice some of these old Japanese cars look these days. Very cool to see mid-70′s Civics etc. in showroom condition. It’s not just riced out crap, plenty of cars are completely stock and/or restored to new or better than new condition.
Never mind the sedan, where oh where is that wagon? The Cressida wagon is the closest thing to a full size wagon to come out of Japan — in fact, think of it as having the luxury of a late 80′s Buick Electra wagon with mechanicals equal or better than the best German and Swedish wagons of the time. And you gotta love the dual tailgate wipers. But just try to find one today. I just ran a Jaxed Mash search and found all of two for sale — one in Hawaii, and another near Seattle that sounds like it has been abused.
I must admit, though, to having an attraction to the Japanese-Chrysler style of the 1978-80 Cressidas, like this one: http://sacramento.craigslist.org/cto/2482636973.html
The family had an 86 wagon from around 1990-1996. Very solid, luxurious (it even had a graphic equalizer) and fast for its day. With the square back, it held tons of cargo. I was happy to drive it when I had the chance. It beat the crap out of the Queen Family Truckster that it replaced.
Uh, that would be the “WAGON Queen Family Truckster” that it replaced, no? Remember, “You think you hate it now, just wait until you drive it!”
One of my former employer’s wife had an original Cressida, a very nice Japanese Volvo. His main ride was a big 70′s Caddy, which ran well but had poor fuel mileage. He replaced it with a FWD bustleback Seville about the same time his wife got the Cressida. The Seville was, just awful. Constant problems with the car, he spent more time driving loaners than his own car. He drove his wife’s Cressida a lot back then, too. He trades the Seville for a Jaguar Sedan. It may have been a Vanden Plas, but it was also a larger POS than the Seville. Same story, only much more expensive, drives loaners, drives wife’s Cressida. Finally, into the early 90′s, he gives up on Jag ownership and buys an ES 300 for his wife (to replace the decade old Cressida) and a LS 400 for himself.
These folks are elderly now, and have stopped driving, but I believe they still have the Lexus’ that they bought about 20 years ago.
Additionally, I have truck driver friend who has one of the late Cressidas, but he only drives it to the yard, so it has very few miles for a 23 year old car. It will be a great buy for someone.
Credit where credit is due, ‘Yota built some really good cars in that timeframe.
I had forgotten about the graphic equalizer but yes our 84 Cressida wagon had one of those also. I think the seats in the Cressida were not as low to the floor as many other Toyota models (especially the trucks) and I am thinking our later 93 Maxima may have had seats lower to the floor than the Cressida. Kind of hard to remember now. During the early part of the current decade I was managing a branch library in Naples, FL and an older couple that used to come in every week had an 86 Cressida Wagon in showroom condition. I often told them I would love to buy it should they ever decide to sell but they indicated I should get in line. I’m retired now so I don’t know the rest of that story.
Jeff, I can’t believe this!
I was about to write a ‘Rent, Lease, Sell or Keep’ article for the 1986 Toyota Cressida.
I bought one this past Monday at a Carmax auction for only $300. Silver color (faded to hell), Leather (tore), Sunroof (works perfectly), A/C (ditto!), and the all too authentic 1980′s stereo system with built in equalizer.
It drives surprisingly well but needs a bit of brake work. I thought about keeping it. But the price of gas and my frequent travels makes my 1st gen Honda Insight worth keeping.
Still… an amazing coincidence. I loved your Olds Cutlass Supreme article as well. Great work!
Steven,
Can’t wait to see your piece on the Cressida. I NEVER miss Hammer Time. It is appointment reading at my house. In fact , my 19 year old son and I dissect, debate and even argue about them endlessly . (When dinner rolls begin to be thrown, we are nearing consensus). Your words are very kind. Thank you.
Hey, that’s my photo! (the maroon wagon with the neat alloy wheels) I remember taking it last year in one of the Michigan State University parking lots. I also have a rear angle shot, if you didn’t already see it. Gotta love the quirky dual rear wipers, just like the Gen3 Camry!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45538799@N04/4482427321/
I’ve seen that car around a couple of other times, IIRC driven by a MSU student, but it’s been a while now. Could have gone to the scrap heap, or perhaps the owner just graduated and moved away.
This here is my ’84 Cressida, that my Grandparents bought new back in October of ’83. I loved that car ever since I was little and knew it was something special even at that age. Whenever I stayed at my Grandparents I would look out the window at night when I was supposed to be sleeping at just look at it parked in the driveway. It was the car that practically sold my entire family on Toyotas ever since. My Grandpa sold it to my immediate family in 2003 and I drove it around throughout HS and my early college years before it got replaced by a mint ’94 Toyota Pickup. I still couldn’t let go of the Cressida though so I still drove it around on weekends. Sadly, she stopped working last December ( fuel pump went out is my best guess, but I’ll never be 100% certain) and got donated this past May. I still choke up knowing it’s gone and swear to myself I will get another 1984 Cressida, but I’ll never forget this car. Who says you Toyotas have no soul?
I hope you guys do a Curbside classic on the MX63 (2nd Generation Cressida like mine) soon. They truly are awesome cars that deserve some more attention.