![IMG_20130629_145457[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_20130629_1454571.jpg)
I should be completely honest with you: There are a couple of reasons why you don’t see much from me in the way of images. For one, I live in a country where if someone finds you taking pictures of a car they will really think you’re up to something. And, speaking from experience, “I’m taking it because I want to write about it for the internet” is NOT an acceptable reply. Second, my only camera is my phone, and it certainly is not the last word in image capture. It’s more what my fellow demographic will call a “Potatophone” Still, I thought this was worthy of sharing.
The AE92 Corolla coupe doesn’t get nearly as much admiration as its predecessor, mostly because this one is driving the front wheels. Nonetheless, it was still petite enough to be fun to drive and supremely reliable. It would be a couple of years until Toyota decided “good enough” would do, and started penny-pinching their vehicles.
The Camaro, on the other hand, does drive the correct wheels to engage in a couple of drift fights, although that would be an incredible waste of an unmolested example of one of the most beautiful muscle cars of the ‘70s. We’re forever being told that cars just got more and more bloated as time passed, so it was nice to see a pair of two-door coupes that have it backward. Which one would you take home?
NIce find on that Camaro…these are some of the nicest looking ones ever.
I actually like those Corollas. Just a nice clean 2 door. Even fwd, if they had a turbo on that and a manual itd make an attractive fun to drive little car. The 4 door blah-mobiles….why bother? That’s how I feel about Toyota’s entire lineup except the FJ Cruiser. They may be reliable and well built but just bland and ‘meh’. Nothing that will ever earn my dollar.
+1 on the Camaro long time 2nd generation fan here
There wasn’t a turbocharged AE92, but in Japan there WAS a supercharged Corolla Levin/Sprinter Trueno, the GT-Z. It had the 4A-GZE engine, basically the one in the supercharged MR2. There are a handful of them in Canada and undoubtedly Australia and New Zealand.
I know these weren’t ever factory turbo’d….just playing a game of ‘what if’.
They didn’t sell the coupe of this model Corolla in Australia (or the previous model for that matter), we only got the 4AGE in the 5-door Seca liftback that I think was sold in the US as a Geo. I knew a guy who was going to buy one except there was a wait of several months to get one so he got the model below instead.
I would have to choose the Camaro here, lots of potential for a nice restomod.
You did get the E80 coupe for at least a little while — it was badged Sprinter and had the carbureted 4A-C engine, I think similar to the one in the U.S. Corolla Sport SR5.
I remember that several Toyota products were available with a supercharger as an option, supplied by TTE from Cologne, Germany. TTE (Toyota Team Europe) built the Toyota WRC rally cars back then. The Lexus IS200 was one of them and I read about a Land Cruiser 70-series with the 4.2 liter diesel and a supercharger. (The 70-series had a naturally aspirated straight six diesel then)
This one was best-known, the Corolla T-Sport with a 1.8 liter engine + supercharger.
Under the hood, very nicely done.
This was much earlier and it wasn’t a dealer option, but a distinct model with a 1.6-liter engine and an in-house supercharger. It was offered on the Levin and Trueno from 1988 through 1995. For a while in the ’80s, Toyota also had a supercharged version of the G-type 2-liter six (the 1G-GZE), which was offered in the Mark II/Cresta/Chaser and Crown.
Yes, Toyota sure had some interesting sporty and fast models throughout the years. Past tense.
Well, the supercharged six wasn’t a performance engine — it was for the bigger luxury sedans as a cheaper alternative to the 3-liter six.
I’ll take the Camaro. Good point about people’s fear of having their vehicle checked out. Once when I was about 13 or 14 I was looking at a parked car on the street, and as I looked to see if the car had bucket seats and was a stick or automatic some asshole came flying out of his house accusing me of looking for things to steal. I always would look but not touch, and I told him what I was up to and he still kept giving me a hard time. I finally told him to go ahead and call the cops and I’ll wait for them and let them know you said you were going to ‘kick my ass’. He finally went back inside.
I had a similar experience as a child. I think I was about 11 and the neighbors by my grandmothers house had a wrecked ’68 Cutlass. For some reason I just wanted to touch it and as I went into the side yard of the neighbors house this lady came out screaming at me that she was going to sick her dog on me.
I was in the wrong, I shouldn’t have gone on their property.
Just a couple years ago a neighbor in the townhome complex I used to live in had a new Challenger that looked like it had flown off the road and crashed. It was dented up all over and the quarter panel was completely smashed. I walked around it to survey the damage. I noticed the front window was down, so I purposely made a wide arc away from the window so nobody would think I was trying to steal out of it. Sure enough a lady came out on her balcony in pajamas and asked what I was doing. I went over and talked to her and told her about how I love those cars and I hope everyone was ok. She said everyone was ok, but was a little short with me. I got the picture and left it alone.
I’d have the Toyota over the Camaro. My ex owned one of those Corolla coupes when we got married and it was light, precise, and fun to drive. We got rid of it at 175,000 miles only because we needed a family car. It was pretty banged up by then but showed no sign of stopping.
I never understood the point of offering both the FWD Celica and FWD Corolla Coupe at the same time. Maybe one was more expensive, but how exactly was the base model of one better than the other (putting aside turbos, All-Trac, etc.)?
They did overlap a bit for the target market. The Basic models had around $2000 separating each other, with the main difference being the Celica having the more powerful 2.0 3S-FE vs the Corolla’s 1.6 4A-FE. The Corolla GT-S coupe really did encroach on the Celica however, with its high performance 4A-GE (especially the 90-91 model years with 135hp). Toyota rectified this in early 1991 by introducing the Tercel based Paseo and discontinuing the Corolla coupes at the end of the model year.
For shaaaaaame…
It should be noted that the Corolla Sport coupe was dropped only in North America. The Corolla and Sprinter coupes survived in Japan through the end of the E110 generation in 2000. We didn’t get the hotter versions with the aforementioned supercharged engine, the later 20-valve 4A-GE, Super Strut, and other toys.
The Toy. I grew up with those Camaros, and thought them pretty slick at the time, but cars were much bigger then in general. They just seem like too much outside for what you get inside to me now. I appreciate ponycars and musclecars, but they aren’t my thing.
As far as photographing cars, in my town, there’s been a lot of Facebook discussion of the rights of photographers. Some police departments do harass people on the street for photographing in public, but they have no legal bounds to do so. That doesn’t mean I want to put myself in the position of mixing it up with anyone over it.
I’m a fan of both, but in this case I would take the Chevy. The Camaro just has the “look”.
Give me the Corolla. I had a Camaro for a period of time in my life, I enjoyed it and even miss it to some degree, but at my core I’m really a smaller car person. These Corollas were fun to drive, rather handsome to me, and virtually bulletproof.
It’s too bad so many people are suspicious of anyone with a camera. I’ve found if you’re in a group and all of you are lugging around tripods and SLRs with big lenses, then people are not so guarded. But if you’re the “lone wolf” with a camera, many eye you with suspicion, if not outright contempt. As if there aren’t security cameras and closed circuit monitors all over the place anyway.
I’ll take the Camaro. Beyond all the obvious reasons, it’s competent enough to drive and enjoy today.
Corolla as daily driver; Camaro for nice weather weekend cruises and drive-ins.
The Corolla’s reliability and frugality makes it the right car for daily driving. But this one is nice enough to avoid the salty snow.
The Camaro’s body flexes, rattles and makes all kind of noises. However, you won’t do more than 5 miles without seeing a thumbs-up, even in rural Iowa.
Camaro; even though it is not really unmolested (raised in the rear, add-on rub strips) it looks cared for and has the purity of line and style that characterized these in their first few years before the bloat kicked in. It looks like something special.
The Toyota is just so…”see them so often they look like the background…” Here, where rust doesn’t eat up cars, there are plenty of older Japanese cars that, while not identical, all sort of LOOK like that. Even if they’re not Toyotas they have the same “feel.”
If I had to pick, it’d be the Camaro. 1970 to 1972 is about the only era of Camaro I really like–the ’67 to ’69 are so overdone, and after that they just don’t do it for me.
But those Corolla coupes do have some charms. Totally different sheetmetal than the sedan, and hidden headlamps, which are a nice 80’s touch.
Yeah, I do like them both. My choice would be the Corolla, considering they haven’t been seen in these parts for at least 10-15 years. Camaros can be found on Craigslist, Ebay Motors and many other places. Considering how far from either coast I am and that Motor City isn’t that far away, those older Japanese cars never were that plentiful. As recent as 20 years ago, I think the Taurus was the best selling car in America. Since then, though, it seems the default basic sedan has been the Camry and/or Accord unless you need something smaller. Then it is the Corolla or Civic. Just pointing out it took longer for the imports to make significant inroads to the heartland than it did on the west coast.
Don’t feel bad Gerardo, even here in the very tolerant Northeast U.S., I still usually feel awkward and timid when taking pictures of cars. If someone questions me, I start rambling about Curbside Classic, very nervously and probably half incomprehensible. There have been times when I haven’t taken pictures of a car due to too many people around. The conditions where you live sound more serious, so never risk it if you feel very uncomfortable 🙂
Camaro. Toyotas do nothing for me. Except make my commute longer.
Beautiful Camaro. Corolla? Blah.
Camaro by a country mile. I respect and admire this generation of Corolla for what it is, but I still prefer American muscle.
After a thorough freshening up of the drivetrain and chassis, I’d drive that Camaro cross-country without a second thought. If you happen to have a breakdown with the Camaro in the middle of America’s heartland, you know that someone nearby has a water pump, transmission, or alternator for it. A 25 year-old Corolla? Good luck.
Ha, it’s funny that people still get touchy about photos when we’re all under more surveillance than ever before.
Last fall I was taking pictures of an old gas station that was originally a Shell design from the ’60s. I wanted to get the proportions right so I could build a model of it. Anyway, the attendant comes out and yells, “WHY YOU TAKIN’ PITCHERS?”
“Ah, I’m interested in architecture, this is an old Shell station, it’s a cool design…”
“Oh, ok.” I suspect that most people don’t care what you’re doing, they just like having an excuse to yell at a stranger.
Is there any other car in that Picture besides the Camaro?
In the late 70s I owned a 77 Nova…which I traded for an 80 Ford Fiesta. Both were decent, base models of their respective cars but I always felt that the Nova was a big car for comfortably hauling 4 people while the Fiesta was a fun, tossable, toy.
So, I’d want to own the Camaro but DRIVE the Toyota.
Never seen one of those Corollas before. I thought it was a Honda Prelude at first.
“…although that would be an incredible waste of an unmolested example of…”
Unmolested my keister. Camaros never came from the factory with the rear end jacked up like that.
“…..my keister”
Thanks for that. Another fine enrichment of my English vocabulary.
Hey no problemo.
You might enjoy this little video about English spelling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsSeRoyCLCI
and this poem using difficult English vocabulary…”THE CHAOS” by G.N.Trenite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJeRIcj5Fb8
This poem is even more aggravating when differences between British English and American English cause arguments.
The Camaro would be my pick. I spent way too much time in a friend’s Corolla to even want to spend a minute in one again. He didn’t like it either, but it was a free car, he inherited it from his Grandmother when she died. It was barely a year old, and he had no money and was going to college, etc, so he gladly took it. It spent a lot of time at the dealer, who found endless other issues to go along with whatever it was in the shop for in the first place, and the prices for parts were inasne. He had it until it rusted to the point it was unsafe, and it had to be scrapped. It was his first, and only FWD car. He went to a full sized pickup when the Corolla died, and hasn’t broken from that pattern. The only thing that’s changed is the brand and colors of his trucks. The present one is a 2014 Ram with the hemi and 8 speed. Very nice to spend time in.
American cars used to have a distinct style, and the Camaro is a good example of it. So are the ’70s personal luxury coupes. Japanese vehicles have always been completely different. Compare their 370Z to the new Camaro or Challenger. Unfortunately, other than what are considered “specialty” cars today, most American and Japanese look and feel pretty much the same. The same is true of Mercedes and BMW. Porsche still has some of it’s identity left, but not much. For really great cars you have to look to the Italians. Their cars don’t look nearly as good as they used to, but better than most. Brands such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and designers such as Sergio Pininfarina, Giacinto Ghia, Giorgetto Giugiaro, and Alejandro de Tomaso have produced many of the worlds greatest, most beautiful (and most expensive) cars.
Today, the only Japanese car I have any interest in is the Miata, the only American cars are the Camaro, Corvette, and Challenger (since Ford fumbled badly with the new Mustang)
And I am a diehard American car guy. But the U.S just doesn’t build cars I like or want anymore. Back during the ’70s and before, actually all the way back to the Model T, there were lots of American cars I liked. The 1932 Ford Coupe, the 1940 Willys Coupe, and the 1947 Chevy Fleetline Coupe are just a few of my favorite non ’70s American cars. There are several dozen more.
As for that Malibu, yes there were ’70s cars I liked a little better, but if I had a chance to buy a brand new one right now I’d be all over it. For those who don’t like it, just look at what your modern choices are. And if you do like modern cars, you’re certainly in luck. But for me, there is simply nothing affordable out there that I want.
I apologize for getting a bit carried away, and off topic. I started with the idea of just pointing out the differences in style of cars from different countries (and cultures) Also, everything I posted is my own opinion. I often get overly enthusiastic when it comes to nice cars.
Remember when the Vietnam boat refugees came to America in the 70s after we pulled out of ‘nam? One of the first English words these people learned, it seemed to me, was “TRANS AM! TRANS AM!”
Why was that?
I’m with ya on the 47 willys(pronounced willlis, NOT willees)
I’ll pass on the 47 chevy(i never like those old fasback cars of that era)
you left out a 51 plymouth 3 window coupe, and a 40 ford coupe and a 49 old rocket 88 club coupe.
The Toyota would be more reliable, but the Camaro would be more fun!!
To look at? The Camaro. No question about it.
To drive? Hmm…not sure about that. While I like the idea of a smaller, more nimble package, I have my doubts whether that Toyota would meet my expectations for nimble.