I was popping into Trader Joe’s for a few things when I noticed this Corolla parked right in front. Suitably fitting into a COMPACT stall. And with a suitably fitting bumper sticker, as well.
But as I was prepping my second picture to post here, figuring a little context within the usual sea of monochromatic parking lot filler would emphasize the distinctiveness of a 40+ year old Corolla, I saw a red car photobombing the background. No, I don’t mean the New Beetle, nor even the red Prius, Tesla, or Tacoma. Look closely, it’s way back (click image for larger view).
In ’77 both of the wife’s sisters wanted new economy sedans, and I recommended they get a Corolla. One bought a green 4 dr, the other one bought a lt blue VW Golf… so guess which sister still had the same car 12 years later? And the other that was gotten rid of after 4 miserable years?
So, in 1977, as a pre-teen, I would’ve picked the Rabbit!
Car and Driver picked the Rabbit in a comparo in 1978, the Corolla was in the mid-rear of the pack.
But I concede your point, Toyota was more consistently reliable. The Rabbits were hit or miss.
But when that Rabbit ran, your wife’s sister had a fun ride 🙂
Both just wanted A to B transportation, and the VW had a bad cam at something like 30k miles and ended up needing a new head, but yes it was more fun to drive when it ran right.. Plus she did have a VW bias, she traded a ’70 Beetle for the Bunny.
I was just enamored of the Golf/Rabbit/Scirocco, reading the car magazines as a pre-teen! To a lesser extent, I also liked the Ford Fiesta that was offered in 1978 in the US.
They loved it–and why not, the numbers were there. Even Consumer Reports ranked it tops.
The 1977 Rabbit was extra special–it came with standard fuel injection, on the 1588 cc engine (in the US 1975 was 1471cc, ’76 was 1588cc, but in ’78, they destroked it to 1,459cc…BOO!).
In 1977, the car press did note the Rabbit was pricey.
The Rabbit and Fiesta looked modern too, more so than the Corolla–which was a tastefully styled car nonetheless.
As luck would have it, at that point in my life, I never rode in a Rabbit or Fiesta (though I did ‘test sit’ and change the gears in a Fiesta at our neighborhood Ford dealer).
Also, there was Corolla I liked…the SR5 5-speed hatchback. It reminded me of the Volvo “coupe” wagon–and the it was a pricey small car.
But, the duller Toyotas were generally more reliable.
I did ride in an auto Chevette, and it was a better place for me than the back of a Pinto.
Thanks tomLU86, now I’ve got this stupid song stuck in my head. Used to sing it to my daughter when she was young.
https://youtu.be/qeuL5IGimCQ
Cheers,
Rock On!
Nice Barracuda!! That’s a great photo bomb!
What a great catch indeed and thank you for sharing not only the Corolla but the Barracuda as well. This Corolla raises so many questions, at least for me. Does it have an automatic and air conditioning, has it been restored at all, is the original owner driving it? I wonder if the Chevy van with the spare tire on the roof and the Chevy pickup with a slide in camper are owned by vagabonds? You see a bunch of that around here.
The Trader Joe’s near me is pretty much at the crossroads of Tualatin, Tigard, as well as Lake Oswego and the parking lot is never this full of late model vehicles. It is a mixture of folks with Teslas and other new sometimes higher end vehicles, vehicle a bit older and perhaps to be traded in soon, and old vehicles sometimes driven by senior citizens. And of course you have the occasional random vehicles.
That Dodge Caravan has 2 different tail lights and a missing hubcap!
As a coincidence I have a Corrolla LE as a loaner while my airbags are replaced. Typical solid little car I expected. Dash is nice except I don’t have a place to mount my phone which makes Google maps kind of useless and illegal if I grab it to look at it while driving.
Yes! The Barracuda with the wraparound rear window!
Great Corolla! We had a series of 8 or 9 of them, one every month, when we were in LA for Dad’s temporary assignment in ’77-’78 and I was a kid.
He went out early and picked us up at the airport a week later in a new Capri from Hertz. Well, that lasted about a day and then my mom made him go back and get something more suitable for a family of four. So a new Corolla it was and every month they asked us to swap it for another one so it could get serviced etc. Some were 2-door, some 4-door, all carried us all over the West Coast on most weekends and every holiday without fail. Good times, it’s hard for the average person over here to imagine a Corolla (any Corolla) as a family car for four but it works everywhere else in the world and did for us as well.
Similar to my same sized family; they were the delivery vehicles for dad’s dental lab in Prizm guise from the get go and then actual Corollas once NUMMI switched to making Vibes instead. Before Dad became owner, they were using Sunbirds and Shadows (!), which he put an end to. In 95 he was intrigued with the new Neon and gave one a chance. That ended up being the single, brief deviation he ever made. I lost count how many we were “assigned” all those years. 3 got totaled from collisions with deer near our home by the woods, yet dad never got hurt, thank goodness. They all went 200k plus without skipping a beat before he’d private sale them off (usually to an employee) and start a fresh one. If I remember right, we had a new one every other year, so something like 15 (and the entire lab likely 75 or so)? The 93-97’s with the 1.8/4-speed auto combo were the best ones, and outside of a Civic EX, the best cars in their class at the time. Very much the constant 3rd car at their home for 25+ years.
The bumper sticker is very appropriate, given the Auris name has just been replaced by Corolla.
We never had the Auris in the US, Corolla continuously since 1967 (?). So thanks for the global perspective … I was thinking the bumper sticker was fitting because of the general political and social views in my town.
Australia stuck with the Corolla name too.
Wow, you guys in California find the most interesting stuff. I have not seen one in the Midwest in, like, forever.
Seeing this Corolla with its blue California plates made me think of the movie La La Land. I’m sure any CC reader who’s seen that film remembers the orange Corolla of this generation in the traffic jam in the opening scene. I always wondered if the director selected that car on purpose as a way of showing off the old cars one often sees on the road in SoCal, or really all of California.
When I saw that scene in La La Land I instantly focused on the Chevy Corsica instead and do not remember that Corolla off the top of my head.
Growing up in the Finger Lakes Region during the 90s and 00s cars from the 1970s were almost nonexistent however, there were plenty of 80s-00s GM cars.
Even here in Oregon 80s-00s GM cars are more common than 70s Corollas.
Here’s the Corolla I was talking about, courtesy of IMCDB.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_1000269-Toyota-Corolla-TE31-1977.html
Funnily enough, I don’t recall the Corsica you mentioned. I guess we all tend to focus on the cars that pique our own unique interests.
How can you miss the Corsica, it has a bigger role than the Corolla!? Heee, heee. The Corsica appears for about a minute starting at the twenty-seven second mark.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xVVqlm8Fq3Y
You see, I was focusing on the La Sabre next to it, because when I was in high school I drove a Park Avenue that looked very similar. 🙂
After re-watching it, I realize I’d forgotten just how full of CCs that scene is. The Corolla, Corsica, La Sabre, Camaro, VW Cabrio, BMW 3-Series… and what’s that blue wagon that appears at 1:33 and again around the 1:50 mark? Is that an early Corona? And an older Toyota pickup, which are extremely common in California. That just reaffirms my suspicion that the director picked those vehicles on purpose.
I have a friend who bought one of these new in the Summer of ‘78 in SoCal. Rust color, bare bones stripper. The dealer had one as a special leader in a newspaper ad and friend shows up before they were even open, first in line and the salesman was extremely reluctant to sell it, lol.
One week later, he and his flight attendant wife were driving it as part of our posse heading for a weeklong houseboat vacation on Lake Powell. My wife and I drove our new Buick Regal Turbo Sport Coupe. This was well before it turned into the POS it became. Great times!
Had a used ’77 during my college years and thru the first few years of my career. Four speed with 1.6 engine. Among the most reliable, but noisy as all hell!! The back end would break loose on a series of bumps in a tight turn. On occasion, those “rose petal” hub caps would pop loose when carrying a full load of gear and a passenger from college to home in a 75+ MPH rush.
Sold it for a much as what I paid for it as inflation was heating up during the Carter administration thru the first few years of Reagan.
I had a 1977 Corolla wagon with the 5 speed…very nice car…reliable, economical. Traded it in for a 1980 Scirocco….that was a great car. quick, economical, fun and great looking
Thanks for all the interesting comments! But to be honest, I was surprised that the Corolla generated more responses than the ‘Cuda. I guess every car has a story, and a lot more of you (us) have stories about Corollas than Barracudas. We too owned a Corolla, though several generations newer, while I’ve never owned a ‘Cuda nor any Mopar or FCA product.
And yes, some of the campers in the back rows are transients, a major issue in our town, and this lot gets so crowded between TJ’s shoppers, campers and people avoiding the parking meters in the adjacent downtown streets, that parking is hard to find after 9 or 10AM.