(first posted 12/18/2016) The new 1975 Corolla was the third generation of what had become an instant hit for Toyota from the first year it was introduced in the US in 1968. R&T had then been quite impressed with it, calling it “an especially good small car”. It got very good reviews almost universally in the press. This new Corolla was designed very much with Americans in mind, meaning it was bigger, wider, longer, roomier, quieter and softer-riding. But those were not exactly the qualities R&T favored, thus there was some disappointment expressed, most of all its reduced performance due to the twin factors of increased weight and emission controls.
0-60 time went up from a quite peppy 12.0 seconds in 1971 to a rather sluggish 15.9 in this one. HP was down from 88 to 75. But driveability was quite good, as it was in many Japanese cars of the time compared to the very common issues with American cars. The Japanese had a head start in coping with aggressive emission regulations in their home country, and it showed. Despite the objectively modest numbers, the Toyota was found to feel brisk in traffic due to the responsive engine and slick-shifting transmission.
The five speed transmission was excellent, “better than those cars costing four times as much”. That had been the case since the Toyota five speed was introduced, and it set a high bar for others. Handling was better than in the past, with less of the typical Toyota understeer.
R&T had to admit that at 2335 lbs, the Toyota was still substantially lighter than its domestic competition. And the quality of its materials and assembly were clearly at the head of the class. It was also came well-equipped, unlike the domestics, which had to be optioned up with even the most basic amenities. In the end, R&T would be suitably impressed, as it was hard not to be, given the many strengths of the Corolla.
I had a ’78 SR-5 back in the day. The materials may have been “above average” but back then none of the manufacturers put ANY effort into rust prevention so here in Fly-Over Country the damned thing dissolved in less than ten years. Too bad, I liked it during it’s brief existence.
This brings back memories. My first new car was a red 1976 Corolla like this, except an E-5 (five speed, quite something at the time, without the blingy stripes and flares).
Overal good value. One of the last years it would come out cheaper than a Chevy. I wonder if the dealers were already getting ADP. The upcoming Chevette seems a more modern body though.
81db at 70mph is enough to keep it off the highway, even with the 5sp. R/T and PN were right about the bloat, it outweighs an early K car.
The curb weight in the R&T article is given as 2335 lbs but the test weight is given as 2675 lbs. What accounts for the huge difference? is this a typo?
Test weight is with (IIRC) two on board, full tank of gas, and with test instruments. Curb weight is manufacturer’s empty weight.
Thanks for the clarification Paul.
Driver and test equipment. Sometimes, I think they’d ride a second person in the car, which isn’t really fair.
I think the second person went away in the late eighties as the equipment got more computerized.
Curb weight listed might also be for a car without air conditioning.
I think it’s as equipped, but without occupants or cargo — I believe manufacturer’s base curb weight was more in the realm of 2,200-some pounds. If anyone has a contemporary Motor Trend review of this car (I do not, GN might), that would probably give some indication. (R&T generally weighed their cars, M/T typically quoted manufacturer curb weight for a base model of that grade.)
At the time, R&T tested with 2 people. (Second to run the stopwatches). From the May 1977 issue forward they introduced lighter and more sophisticated equipment that didn’t need the second person.
The more things change…
The thing about the early-mid 1970s Toyotas was that what you saw was what you got. Outside of the suspension, there was not much tuning or performance equipment available. The same was true of the Dodge (Mitsubishi) Colt. The Datsuns, the Capri, and the Ford Pinto, on the other hand, had tons of parts and goodies available, to build out your car however you wanted to. The Vega and the rotary Mazdas did, too, but you had better know what you were doing, they could be finicky beasties.
On paper, the Toyota Corolla 1600 (light weight car, hemi head engine!) should have been the king of all for those with a bent towards building out a nice little performance car. But the parts, outside of Japan, were very rare and horribly expensive. Furthermore, Hot Rod Magazine’s Corolla project car didn’t really respond all that much to all the work they put into it. A Datsun 510 with off-the-shelf parts or a Mazda RX2 off the dealer lot did just as well or better with much less fuss.
As a nice but not particularly distinctive package, the stock Corolla did just fine, with little to hold against it, but nothing special either, other than a nice level of equipment, in a reliable car that did not cost too much. Kind of like the Corolla today.
Interesting observations which sync with my memories. There was no stock Datsun or Pinto which matched the SR5 Corollas in sporty specs, but the tuner parts and ecosystem were there, unlike for the Toyota. Between that and the decidedly unsporting nature of most other Toyotas of the time, this car (nor the Celica vs Capri or even Monza) had no attraction to me or my friends In the ’70’s. But now, it seems quite appealing.
I have warmed to these in the last couple of years. Even tried to find one but the closest I came was a 4 door model for a ridiculous sum. I think the tin worm got most of them and they got turned into fridges or some other appliance…
Americans probably did not get The Carina2000GT.we got it downhere and even the stock model was and is a ton of fun.still planty on road here.
A Carina was availible here with the previous-gen ’71-74 Corolla – but not with the 2.0 engine. I think this ’75 Corolla SR-5 coupe replaced it.
Happy Motoring, Mark
The interior looked businesslike but still comfy. Look at all those gauges on the dash! Why did we put up with “idiot lights” from the domestic brands?
If I’d been in the market for a Corolla circa 1975 (I was 11 then) it would probably have been the wagon version with auto and all the upgrades available. Toyota and Honda showed the way forward back then, but the Big Three and AMC ignored them, to their peril.
To be fair, most of the domestics by this point offered gauge packages, and the one pictured was specific to the SR-5 (and the Levin, not sold here), so it was not standard on all Corollas.
The up-level Vega GT or Pontiac Astro offered a nice instrument panel with full gauges, including a tach and fake wood. And a sport steering wheel.
I thought I looked really neat (but the backseat was brutal, and I was 10 or 11). But, as noted, the Vega cost more comparably equipped.
And while the Vega, the actual car and its lousy reputation, was ruining GM’s reputation, especially on small cars, these boring, but reliable and economical Corollas did the opposite, enhancing the reputation of Toyota in particular and Japanese cars in general.
Our versions retained the smaller K series engines and were a bit gutless compared to the NA models, still they were quite popular in their day though not very sporty the way the suspension was set up, it was a bit soft so as to give some ride comfort.
My family owned a ’77 vintage Corolla of this generation in the early-mid 90s in Central NY, originally a California car that had migrated out to Ithaca along with its physicist owners. Tinworm had taken hold quite seriously, my dad’s coworker sold it to our family for a nominal $1. A very crude and basic vehicle in the context of the 1990s and our family’s other car, a 1990 Civic wagon. But also reliable and cheap/easy to work on owing to its simplicity. It was a base car, 4spd manual, manual steering, etc. Mustard yellow paint with bright yellow Rustoleum highlights from my father’s halfhearted attempts at arresting the rust. I remember driving through a slushy puddle and feeling the floormat under my foot bulge up. After a few years of drama-free ownership aside from a leaky brake master cylinder (simply topped off), the car failed inspection as it started to bend in half when our mechanic put it on his lift. Sold it to him for $1, I think he resold it for $50 to a farm kid as a field car.
The 2-door and 4-door sedan variants of this car seemed to be everywhere in my childhood. Many of them were brown, orange, or yellow, being of 70’s vintage. One of the 1970’s “cockroach of the road” candidates. Generally a little run-down looking by the 80’s, but still trundling about in great numbers. Until one day in the mid 90’s they were all gone.
These SR-5 versions, on the other hand, barely register in my memory. I remember the SR-5 liftback with its unique sheet metal, but this hardtop? With its pointed rear window and the distinctive trim piece on the rear fenders, you’d think it would have made an impression on me like its brethren. But…nope. Drawing a memory blank.
The first, and only new car I ever bought was a 1974 Corolla 1200 2DR sedan. “Workmanlike” was about the best I could say about it. Acceleration was dismal. One didn’t use a stopwatch; a grandfather clock would have sufficed. Putting a set of Semperit M401 Hi-Life radials on it radically transformed the handling, though – it had come off the dealer’s lot with Bridgestone bias-ply tires whose grip was as vague as the mighty 1200’s acceleration – but I now could throw the car into curves and corners with abandon. It might still have taken forever to get moving, but I no longer had to hit the brake pedal most of the time. Once the fuel shortage passed, though, my 19-year-old pulse demanded something faster than a pedestrian pace and I traded it for a used 1972 Mazda RX-2 4DR sedan. The extra doors were handy (egad, I was growing up!) but the 9000RPM redline and insane acceleration were far more amenable to my need for speed. The car also was far better equipped. I kept that until I finished college. I just wish 1970s technology could have solved the apex-seal problem…that car could burn oil as well as my first Corvair.
With about 60 potential places for a Corvair engine to leak oil, that is more likely than it being an oil burner.
Headroom: 36.5″ F / 33.5″ R
I simply can’t fit, no matter how nice the car. I couldn’t be comfortable in many pre-Y2K Japanese cars. I suspect many 6′ plus Americans couldn’t either, before the welcome plus-size trend of the last decade and half.
The sedan models probably had a bit more headroom.
Owned a 1975 Corolla 2 door, bought new and kept it through 1982, when I replaced it with another, fancier Corolla 4-door, that was never as good as the original.
As a teen, I beat on that Corolla mercilessly, flogged it to redline all the time, and drove it faster than the car had any right to go. It delivered impressive fuel mileage of about 29mpg driven at high speed on the interstate.
This is one car I wish I had never sold.
I had this exact model and color ( it is a dark blue) from new, oved that car, flogged it like you did. I drove it until it had 160k miles. No problems with it, except to replace the clutch. Wish I could have one today, loved it like no other car I have owned.
I bought my 1975 Corolla E5, you know; way back then.
Different articles had different skid-pad results. This one said .71, I had read .82, at the time… Anyway, it was a good stead. Hemi-head, crossflow design for the motor, and a chassis that cornered like it had something other than a live axle.
I changed the oil every 5,000 miles and got 110,000 miles to a valve spring break (did the head, and all springs), had a couple timing chain/gear replacements, then at 281,000 miles I decided to rebuild it.
Throughout it’s life, I souped it up. I started with headers and exhaust. Got an air dam for the front. Here’s everything: Doug Thorley headers, recurved distributor, engine parts lightened and balanced, the11:1 pistons were balanced, lightened, glasspeened, knurled skirts, extra oil holes drilled, ceramic tops. Track coil. 1-Weber 32/36 DGV two barrel downdraft carb. feeding an Offenhauser dual port intake manifold. As to the chassis. KYB shocks and struts, stabilizer bar in back with neoprene bushings and preload springs, tension compression device on front. 205/60s. Lower springs in front.
Best mileage I got was driving from San Francisco to Las Vegas with an oak table strapped to the top, 42 mpg.
Was a really bad driver back then. Lots of tickets, mostly for speeding.
Made a lot of Porsche owners wonder why they spent all that extra money though.
Someone around here has a purple Corolla sedan of this generation that I often see parked at an apartment complex.
My neighbor got a “75” , or, “76” SR5 coupe in “79”. Was a pretty cool rode as I recall.
Green out/white in.
Back seat, surprisingly, was not all that uncomfortable.
Aussies were lumbered with the 1300 pushrod 4. And the automatic was still the 2 speed Toyoglide. Not an exciting pairing.
At least it’s a real hardtop.
Toyota must have had a mental block about to what to call their vehicles. The ‘SR-5’ for Oz was a small 5-speed pickup released in the late 70s, with the tagline “Toyota S-R-FIVE – That’s how you make a name for yourself”, lol.
What WAS available in the mid-70s, in the Corolla fastback body via full import, was the Toyota Levin – 1600 DOHC, 5-speed, Japanese mirrors, similar interior to that shown. A real screamer for the times, and a better handler than the feature car.