When Leaving Thailand in mid-2019, I figured the T87 family would be back for a visit sometime in the next year or so. After all, it’s only a six-hour flight from Tokyo and we had a lot of social, professional and financial ties there. Then travel became impossibly difficult, plans changed and life went on. Before I knew it, it had been almost five years since we’d left Bangkok. It was time to go back and, while there, check on the CC scene.
Of all the tired Toyotas in this huge steambath of a city, of course, I had to find the one called Corona. Fittingly, one of the last Thai finds I wrote up was a T130 Liftback. It was a near wreck, too – this one is still in use, at least.
So has nothing changed car-wise in Thailand since the 2010s? Sure, there are a few new arrivals – mostly Chinese and electric, but on the whole, things have remained pretty much as they were. There are still a lot of Isuzus around, pickup trucks galore, and fleets of colourful taxis and tuk-tuks continue buzzing about the place – it’s all quite same-same. And there are a few well-worn (usually Japanese) 40-plus-year-old cars cheating death, if you look hard enough. Pity I didn’t have much time for that this time around, but one decent find is always good to take.
They do like their Coronas, here. I saw more there than I usually do in Tokyo – mostly T170s and T190s from the 1990s, and invariably in saloon form. This one has the 1.8 litre (a 1.6 was also available, as was a 2-litre), but it’s a rather low-spec model, with smaller bumpers. And a bit of rust, but surely not enough to be a cause for concern.
Now we see where this venerable motorcar’s owner decided to spend his hard-eared Baht! Spiffing new seats, a shiny wooden steering wheel, a cupholder, etc. – it’s all a lot more affordable than a respray of the whole exterior.
Didn’t stop the owner from adding a pair of new-ish door mirrors and a flimsy rear spoiler. But I digress. It was a real joy to see this Corona, if only to feel like the city I lived in for several years still has some treasure left to uncover.
I can’t imagine better CC hunting grounds than Tokyo, of course. Perhaps some places (such as Beaulieu, Mulhouse or Eugene) would be equally satisfying to prowl, but the eclectic mix of JDM oddities, European classics and American beauties found in the Japanese capital is pretty hard to top. All the same, give me a good old Bangkok banger and I’m a happy CContributor. Hopefully more often than once every five years…
Related posts:
CC Twofer: 1979 Toyota Corona T130 Sedan & Liftback – Forty Years Young, Forty Years Old, by T87
Driveway Outtakes: 1978-83 T130 Corona Liftback – Upstaging The Neighbours, by Don Andreina
CC Capsule: 1979 Toyota Corona – When RWD Still Ruled, by Matt Spencer
CC Capsule: 1979-83 Toyota Corona (T130) Wagon – Mint Mediocrity, by William Stopford
Vintage Review: Toyota Corona and Honda Accord – Two Road Tests, 1979, by Yohai71
A car properly rusting but still in use. Had not seen that in a very long time.
When I grew up, it was normal to see rusted cars. Rotted, even. As a child and car lover I knew by the shape of the car, or its front grille, or rear lamps what car type it was. Later I knew for the various types where they would start to rust and how far it would spread. A first check on any car older than 4 or 5 years was to see how much rusted it was. That skill, learnt through many years and examples of rusted cars, has no use to me anymore. There just are no rusted cars anymore on the streets. So thank you for showing a befittingly rusted car.
I always liked these. After all the weird-looking Japanese cars of the mid-’70s, these were amongst those with a much cleaner style towards the end of the decade. And word about Toyota quality and reliability had gotten around by then. Still, the Corona was small and tight inside compared to, say, a Chevy Citation you could get for the same price or less, and those also had the much-touted bad weather traction advantage of FWD, plus V6 power if you wanted it. Was all that worth sacrificing for Toyota quality? Yes, it turned out…
I recall these being the last Toyota (or any Asian car) that offered a bench seat and column-shift automatic until the Avalon.
This cracked and wrinkled and mottled old pile has, by some hidden turn of the universe, come to resemble exactly those who bought them 40 years ago.
Mind you, the underparts were always in that condition from new, and haven’t had to travel through time in that way: old, dated, poor-handling, slothful, moany-sounding, poor-riding and yet undamped, vague in the steering box and squished in the seating, a detestably dull mix (and in this country, fitted with an appalling 1.9 GM 4 cylinder that was seemingly designed to reproduce the thrustiness and balance of a broken washing machine). Worse still, the retired owners bought them in big numbers in these parts, such that they seemed like a plague, and as a final act of glum defiance, the damn things could not be eradicated by time. They survived on some preternatural force of their own dullness.
Indeed, I was cursed to see one here just recently, possibly with the still-living remains of the original buyer at the wheel. Naturally, I alerted our CDC immediately, and may I add, next time you see one, Prof T, can you please shoot it without using a camera?
Yeah I remember those 1.9 Coronas, you couldnt give them away, but proper Toyota powered Coronas were a really good car, when the rust gets in its over NZ assembled Coronas got galvanised in the end that stopped em rusting and natural causes has failed to eliminate all of them yet, actually recent experience with a JDM Caldina that fired right up and ran after 7 years as a garden feature makes me wonder if they will ever disappear.
If only for the avoidance of doubt, they were not much better in the UK and Europe where we did get the Japanese engine. Back then people still bought Ford Cortinas and Opel Asconas in droves, those hardly scratched the market.
Looks like it would have been a really nice car in the day. At first, it reminded me of the Cressida. Although not a Toyota fan, I’ve always liked and wanted a mid 80’s to early 90’s Cressida.
That spoiler looks really incongruous on one of these.
Although not a bad car per se, these were comprehensively overwhelmed in the Australian market by the Mitsubishi Galant Sigma and (to a lesser extent) the Nissan Bluebird. In one of its episodic bursts of automotive enthusiasm, Nissan seemed to have whipped up a good car (though they were about to go back to sleep), certainly better then the Corona, while Mitsubishi seemed to have come out of obscurity to blow them both out of the water.
As Justy says, in Australian assembly these were cursed with the Holden Backfire (as it is unaffectionately known) ‘engine’, two-thirds of an old pushrod Holden design. It ran, and moved the car, but that’s the best you could say about it. It turned petrol into noise and vibration, with any actual power seemingly as a byproduct, and that was after Toyota’s engineers had improved it. You had to buy the expensive imported Liftback to get a halfway-decent engine, the old 18R.
This government-led ‘component-sharing’ debacle practically compelled would-be buyers to look elsewhere unless they were dead-set on buying a Toyota, and gave Toyota an image problem that lasted a decade or more, arguably to this day.
Maybe it was a competent car with a Toyota-designed engine, but I have never taken the T130 seriously. A great find, even with that awful spoiler!
A mate of mine recently bought an Aurion Toyotas Aussie flagship complete with wank wing/spoiler its held on with glue surely that cannot be factory fitted
They did a Touring version, which had a spoiler, but yeah a ‘sporty’ Aurion seems weird!
Agreed, Pete.
My first car -in 1991, was an ’81 Nissan Buebird.
Previously, Mum had a new ’79 Chrysler Sigma / Mitsubishi Galant.
Both completely reliable.
Unlike the ZK Fairlane (severe rust) and worse, VK Commodore….
Nice to see an oldie still soldiering on .
-Nate