Beneath draped-over ads for this fall’s TV series, local attorneys, or nearby casinos, California’s temperate weather has preserved a pasteup that’s more than 20 years old. I haven’t seen a Toyota Celica of any generation for quite a while, but if anyone’s asking, I’d prefer a mid-80’s Supra.
That’s an sick time capsule!
Incredible indeed and oh look a Camaro.
That’s amazing. How is it possible that the sun hasn’t completely killed that sign? The only fading is a bit at the top. Is there a tall building nearby that has, somehow, managed to keep the solar rays at bay over all these decades?
Read the text carefully again. This ad had been covered up by others (not paste-on) for decades, and now that they’re taking it apart, the old ad is still there, having removed the overlying newer ads, which are not pasted on (wrapped).
Understandably, many car people are visual. We absorb the pics before taking time to read the article. I’m guilty. 😉
If you blow the picture up, you can see that the recently-expired billboard is hooked to a crane. They’ll lower the line, hook up the new ad in a tight scroll, then the workers on the catwalk will unfurl and attach it to the board over the Toyota. I happened to be getting coffee as the billboard change started–the whole process can’t take long, maybe half an hour to an hour.
Wow. Remarkable that’s survived!
I also wonder if the billboard used to be taller, as the top portion of the roof seems to be out of the frame?
I think a lot of these billboards have removable panels to allow for some variation in poster aspect ratio. (I’d go out and look, but all the billboards like this in my neighborhood have been replaced by the spectacularly irritating digital kind, where the billboard is actually a screen cycling between several images or, if the operating system crashes, showing a glaring bright blue background.)
What’s the bushy red boxy little car thingy? “CAR RED. LEAVES GREEN!”
Nissan Cube.
The fact that this survives is astonishing. The wheels and wide body paired with that front bumper tell us it’s either a ’90 or ’91 GT-S. These were not cheap cars. Assuming it’s from 1990, it would have started at $16,268. For perspective, adjusted for inflation, that’s $29,605 today.
It’s funny you bring up the price.
I just found the window sticker for my 1989 Thunderbird Super Coupe, $20,879 (all options except Leather, CD player and Remote Filler door).
It seems inexpensive today but it was a good chunk of change back then.
$20879 in 1989 dollars would be $40,050 adjusted for inflation in 2014
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Car makers are very careful about the handling of their marketing. I’m really surprised someone associated with Toyota, even a salesperson just driving by, didn’t arrange to have this removed much sooner.
Some corporations seem to be more careful at cleanup than others. There’s a local KFC franchise that’s been closed for several years. And all the Kentucky Fried Chicken branding is still there, faded badly and broken, for the world to see.
See my other comment above. It’s been covered up for decades….
Ahh, now that makes sense. Thanks Paul.
With the limited UV exposure and moisture, only the adhesives would damage it.
Agree about the Supra; my roommate got a 1985 (or so) which just oozed quality all around, typical of Toyotas back then. It was an odd choice for him, not being an enthusiastic driver or extrovert.
Was the Celica ad always visible? Or was this discovered after another ad was removed from on top of it?
I’d assume it was covered. If it was exposed for 20 years and looks that good today, Toyota had a very good sign company!
What a cool thing to see!
It’s funny. Before looking at the age of the Celica, the ad graphic design (type/colors/photo cropping) said early 90s.
Damn! Even Toyota’s SIGNS were world class back then. It’s lasted like today’s 1980 Tercel!
Ummm, white knuckles are a sign of fear… and I don’t a single soul that was fearful of a Celica. Just sayin’.
Yes, “red Volare, white knuckles” would be more appropriate. Or maybe substitute a Pinto? 🙂
See an old guy around here that drives a red coupe like that
Toyota marketing fun cars? “Get corporate on the line ASAP, this oversight tarnishes our tree hugger appliance car image!!!”
Let us not forget the Toyota 86 (and whatever the Scion version is called — FR-S, I guess), which is as hardcore a sports car as Toyota has offered since the old MR2 and A80 Supra.
So you approve. It is quite a fun car to drive, but I find the boxer-four unsatisfying. It doesn’t throb like old Subaru fours, nor does it rev like Toyota’s best engines. It’s very much good enough, but not a charismatic piece. The handling, on the other hand… magnifique!
The car isn’t without flaws, but you certainly couldn’t say it’s not purposeful. In Japan, there’s even a stripped-out version (the 86 RC) for club racers and the “hoon your own” set, so Toyota also clearly knows who’s buying these cars, too.
I’m certainly not a Toyota fanboy, but I think much of the bashing is unreasonable. Like most automakers, Toyota has engineers and designers who like sporty cars, including some who are pretty good at it when given the chance, but with any big company, its decisions are driven mostly by numbers. The only real reason Toyota dumped its earlier sporty cars was that they were no longer selling well enough for the company to consider them commercially worthwhile. (Given the dismal sales figures, I’m amazed that Toyota held onto some of those cars — even as JDM-only models — as long as they did.)
Is that regrettable? Sure, particularly what is considered viable is at odds with my tastes (not having kids, I hate SUVs), but it’s not any different than the decision-making process for any other big automaker, so it doesn’t make sense to me to single Toyota out for it. The only automakers that don’t operate that way are smaller manufacturers whose survival hinges on niche products, and even those companies eventually end up with an MBA infestation and start talking about de-contenting and stretching the brand for more mass-market appeal.
I totally agree.
I think the criticism might be based around the idea that (I’m speculating) if any company has the resources to do something sporty and engaging in a soft market for sports cars, it’d be Toyota. And with Mazda making the MX5 and Nissan making the 370Z for this long, surely Toyota could come up with something.
The tricky thing about comparisons with the current Z and the Miata/MX-5 (and the Mustang, for that matter) is that those cars survive sort of in the same way Rambler did before the Eisenhower recession: They’re niche products that continue to thrive because they don’t have a lot of really direct competition. Periodically, somebody takes a potshot in the MX-5’s general direction, so far without much success (remember the FWD Mercury Capri?), but that’s about it. Similarly, the Z manages to survive because while it’s starting to get into a brand-conscious price realm, it’s still cheap enough and brawny enough to make a case for itself — if you’re snobby about badge, you could get an Audi TT, but that’s really not the same thing and everybody knows it.
With each of those cars, I have the feeling that if you take its average annual sales and add 10 to 20 percent, you have a pretty good estimate of what the market will bear. So, if you add more competitors to that niche, they’ll either fail to thrive (which is basically what happened to the RX-8) or they’ll divide the market enough that all the entries end up expiring.
On top of that, as I said to Johannes in another thread, it’s been a while since Toyota had any real commercial success with most of its sporty models. As a result, along with everything else, they have to overcome a credibility gap to be taken seriously. (I don’t think that’s as big a problem in the States as it is in Europe, but it is a problem.) Toyota sells an awful lot of the pseudo-sporty Corolla S, but if someone wants a modicum of actual performance, they’re probably not even going to look in that direction. (Remember the short-lived Corolla XRS a couple of years ago?)
The 86 indicates that Toyota is certainly capable of doing something impressive enough to overcome the skepticism and I think it’s commendable that they chose to do so with such a carefully enthusiast-focused car, particularly one priced the way it is. It would have been a lot simpler — and likely cheaper — for Toyota to take the Lexus IS/RC platform and reinvent the Supra as a $35,000 370Z rival, which I have to think they’ve considered. (I don’t think it would be successful, but it is an obvious possibility.) On the other hand, the 86 was undoubtedly expensive to develop — which I assume is why it was co-developed with Subaru — so even in a best-case scenario, there aren’t going to be a lot of projects like that. To take a serious shot at something when you know there’s a good chance of falling on your face takes dedication, and in this case money.
Since the 86’s target demographic could probably be summed up as “moderately affluent hoons, predominantly male, aged 25–34,” I will grudgingly admit that marketing it as a Scion in the U.S. (and Canada?) makes a certain amount of sense given Scion’s ostensible mission as Toyota’s official Brand for the Yout’. On the other hand, I think Scion was a misguided idea from go (as with other heavy-handed efforts to push cars for the aforementioned Yout’), so…
I agree with all that, too, but it begs the question–why the credibility gap?
In re: the credibility gap: It’s a matter of reputation. If a brand or a model has a history of being one of the leaders in a particular niche (like the 3-Series or the Golf GTI), fans and auto journalists are going to start off giving it the benefit of the doubt no matter how dire it turns out to be. Even if it’s a dud, the past luster may let it coast through a couple of generations because people will buy it based on the previous version or at least look at it to see if the manufacturer has wised up.
Conversely, if a manufacturer or model has not previously been a meaningful player, they’re going to have to be blindingly good or the best they’re going to get is a grudging “well, this is a start and maybe in a generation or two they’ll actually be competitive” from the press and a shrug from buyers.
Toyota obviously has a lengthy history of sporty cars, but outside Japan, they haven’t really done that well with sporty versions of their bread-and-butter cars. (Again, I’m referring to actual performance versions rather than cosmetic packages like the Corolla S, which seem to do quite well.) The ones people in the States remember — the 2000GT, Celica, Supra, and MR2 — were all specialty cars. If you ask random people (enthusiasts or not) to name a C- or D-segment car that’s actually decent to drive, Toyota is not going to be on that list at all, even though they have tried (the aforementioned XRS, the T-Sports and TS in Europe).
The AE86 Levin/Trueno is an interesting case because while it was a Corolla (or a Sprinter, depending), it was really a cult thing. I dearly wish I’d been able to find sales breakdowns by model, but I don’t think the RWD coupes were big sellers and I’m pretty sure the DOHC models were a rather small slice of that. If you say “Celica” or “Supra,” people know what you’re talking about and probably remember either having one or knowing someone who did, but if you say “AE86,” only a narrow subset of people won’t just stare blankly.
I don’t think the 86 has anything particular in common with the AE86 other than being RWD and having a twin-cam engine — Toyota has asserted the 86 is the same size as the AE86, which it really isn’t — so it’s interesting that Toyota chose to draw that connection. If I were a drift fan, my reaction would probably have been, “My god, you mean Toyota knows we exist?” which may well have been the desired effect. That’s one way to deal with the credibility gap, although if the 86 hadn’t had the chassis to back it up, I doubt Toyota could have successfully tried again in our lifetimes.
“Again, I’m referring to actual performance versions rather than cosmetic packages like the Corolla S, which seem to do quite well.”
I remember an article here years ago that involved surveying people in a shopping centre parking lot (or similar) about whether they would like to own a Subaru WRX or STi (WR blue & gold wheels) or a dressed up similar-looking Kia Rio sedan that was around 1/3 the price. Most people preferred the Subaru, until the prices were disclosed.
It’s more the idea of having a sporty car with an actual Toyota badge on it. Scion seems like it exists solely to not have American appliance or green car customers getting the wrong idea of “Toyota the division’s” brand image.
What about the trucks on the job? I cant quite make out what era the Ford LT/Sterling is from, or what is behind the Camaro. Is that a trailer-mounted crane?
Kudos Rich for capturing the interesting insight into something we wouldnt normally pay attention to, and heres hoping that Celica ad stays there for decades to come like ads you sometimes see painted on buildings from 60-80+ years ago exposed when an adjoining building is demolished or more similar to this case, a newer advertising structure removed. Imagine a young person seeing this same scene in 40 or 50 years’ time, for starters they will probably never seen a car with pop-up headlights!
I drive a1990 Celica Alltrac, fun car but it’s never exactly made my knuckles “white”.
Yes, those cars are more about stability and midrange torque rather than sharp-edged mania.
How long have you had it? Care to share more? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d be very much interested in hearing more.
Uh, yeah, I’ll second that. Would love to hear more and see some pictures too! Not too many of those left around here.
They were capable of the odd white-knuckle moment… (Carlos Sainz rolling his rally car many times)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yo5OOe1z0c
A sad reminder of when Toyota actually had a pulse when it came to ‘cool’ cars. I could stomach the cammarollas in the lineup for the whitebread non-car people if the Celica existed for the turbo fwd/awd sport coupe set, and the Supra for the ‘real’ sportscar. The BRZ and tC have potential, of course…but would be better served as Toyotas with heritage names. The FJ Cruiser is about the only thing worth a second look at Toyota…but it still falls short of the Wrangler in most ways.
Well, the BR-Z is marketed as a Toyota — and a heritage Toyota — pretty much everywhere else. Notice the “86” piston logos on the front fenders? In other markets, the car is the 86 (or GT 86), which is a callback to the RWD AE86 Corolla Levin/Sprinter Trueno so beloved of the drift scene. Some people within Toyota wanted to make it the next Celica, but Akio Toyoda thought the AE86 allusion would be a purer statement of intent, since a lot of Celicas were really mild-mannered commuters.
But here in America it’s the Scion FR-S(the badge engineered BR-Z is a Subaru), a fake division with a meaningless alphabet soup name, totally devoid of callback like the Toyota AE86 elsewhere. Toyota the Corporation may still have a pulse but Toyota the division appears to be trying their damndest not to mix sport into it, which to me anyway appears to be to preserve the hard earned image of plain white bread commuters(I was going to say plain Vanilla but any ice cream is still more exciting than a Camry).
FR-S is something I think they pulled from their JDM marketing for the 86: “FR-Sports,” meaning it’s their first front-engine/rear-drive sporty cars in a while. (Toyota also marketed the JDM MR2 for a long time with the “MR [Mid-engine/rear-drive] Sports” tagline, so it’s probably supposed to be a callback to that as well.) However, the terms “FF,” “FR,” and “MR” seem to be a lot more commonly used in Japan than they are here (I assume because the English acronyms are simpler than the equivalent in Japanese), so at best it doesn’t translate. I agree that it’s awkward and confusing — I had to look it up because I couldn’t remember it — but this is the sort of nonsense that corporate marketing and communications people talk each other into.
I don’t know how much independence Scion actually has organizationally; Toyota’s official history and the official website describe it as a brand name of Toyota’s North American sales organization. I think it’s more like Ford’s old Merkur experiment, which was really a subset of Lincoln-Mercury in organization and dealers. I don’t know if there are any standalone Scion stores. (My impression is not, although I could be wrong.)
In any case, the Scion brand has not been doing particularly well — they had a dealer exodus last year — and I think the main purpose of making the 86 a Scion was to try to pep up interest, far more than any idea of keeping it out of Toyota stores. I do think Scion in general was a misguided attempt to replicate the Japanese dealer model, where different dealer channels carry different products — it’s probably not coincidental that most of the cars Scion carries are sold in Japan through the Toyota Netz channel, which is also supposed to be a youth-oriented program. (In Japan, Netz also sells the Toyota RAV4, but I assume Toyota figured rebranding the RAV4 here would just confuse everyone.)
TL;DR — the upshot is, “I’m not saying it was a good idea, but I understand why they did it.”
What exactly is your point? Even if it was sold as Toyota whatever, we both know you still wouldn’t be buying one. The branding is not the problem you make it out to be.
Yeah, the FR-S/86 is a car of such specific audience — much more so than the old Celica — that the kind of people who will buy one either aren’t going to care about the badge or will just buy JDM Toyota badges off the internet anyway. (The FR-S already has the “86” fender emblems, so it’s really just the logos on the nose, tail, and wheel centers.)
But you see, it is a problem. Among many of the enthusiast-minded folk I encounter (mostly on forums rather than in real life, mind you) there are a good many who are fans of the BR-Z, have considered purchasing one, or have purchased one. The car gets a lot of love. The majority of those folks wouldn’t touch an FR-S with a ten foot pole. Everyone knows they’r the same car and the styling differences are so small as to be meaningless, so it’s really *all* about brand cred. Subaru has it in spades, from the WRX and their rally success. Scion, on the other hand, has zero. People see it either as a youth brand (and not in a good way, in a “we sell cheap cars that appeal to teenagers and students” way), a green brand, or a silly misdirection attempt.
I don’t know the sales figures, but it would shock me if the BR-Z doesn’t sell better. (And I do wonder how many FR-Ss end up with a full GT-86 rebadge? Probably a good many.)