I’ve always had a thing for old, RWD, straight six-powered Japanese sedans, so when the opportunity to purchase this Cressida popped up, I jumped on it. Fully loaded with sunroof, digital dash, and automatic climate control, it was the best-equipped car that I had owned to date.
It had only 85k on the odometer and appeared to be in good condition, save for a massive oil leak (it was still drive-able. This car gave me respect for the 5MGE engine–very smooth and surprisingly powerful. You couldn’t even hear it running (I fixed that problem with a Magnaflow exhaust, though). The only two items missing were the five-speed, and LSD (which came with 5-speed equipped cars, along with sport seats and electronic suspension).
However, I didn’t really mind owning an automatic this time around, as this was the type of car that made you want to cruise with the seat back rather than shift for yourself. That, and well…good luck trying to find a five-speed MX73 =/. It became a real handful to take care of after a while. My initial intention was to fix the oil leak, but then it started misfiring randomly, burning more oil than it was leaking, not starting at the worst possible times and rusting, seemingly from out of nowhere. The suspension needed a complete overhaul as well. It may have had only 85k, but it must have been the hardest 85k that any car has seen before or since. At the time, my wallet couldn’t keep up with the problems, so it had to go. One good thing I can say about this car is that despite its many problems, it never left me stranded and always started….well, eventually, at least. The person who purchased the car from me performed a 7MGTE/five-speed swap and fixed all of the other problems. It still lives to this day, in Queens, NY.
Don’t let it go to the impound this time like the Bimmer did!
I would love to see a contest between RWD I6 powered sedans from the mid 80s. Let’s see you could have had a Toyota Cressida, a Dodge Diplomat, could you still get a I6 in a Fox platform Ford sedan? What other vehicles matching that description were still available in the US market at that time?
(FYI the sad thing is that that Cressida was likely faster than the 307V8 powered Cutlass Sedan I had.)
Mercedes 300E; BMW 280e/330i; Datsun 810;
Once again Paul I’m showing my narrow automotive upbringing. American cars were the only ones that existed. In my family foreign cars were like non-Catholics, we didn’t acknowledge they existed! (Thank god I’ve gotten beyond that narrow mindedness.)
I wasn’t even aware of the Cressida until college (1995-1999) when a communications professor of mine had a well kept 1987 model. It was quite a contrast to the Oldsmobile I was driving, although the cars certainly had similar missions in the mid of their respective makers.
@PrincipalDan: What are these non-Catholics you speak of?
J/K, raised by Bavarians, Austrians and Croatians…
Married an Irish Protestant…
Hilarity ensued…
Still married, though…
Bavarians and Swiss. My first wife converted from being a United Methodist. She told me she was doing it to “make my mother happy” which I told her was the dumbest reason I ever heard. It should have been a warning to me.
My new wife is a cradle Catholic (mixing Mexican, Spanish, and Native American blood) but since I’m a divorced Catholic my mother’s still not happy. Oh well I gave up trying to please her more than a decade ago.
My wife was also a Methodist, when I met her. She refused to convert, so we settled on being Lutherans (Evangelical or American, not Missouri or Wisconsin Synods). Same deal, P.O.’d my mother too. And, same deal, gave up trying to appease my mother…
The odd thing is, my mother loved my wife like her own daughter. I sometimes thought she liked my wife better than me!
God rest her crazy Bavarian soul…
My wife and I are both Atheists. Makes things infinitely easier!
For now. 🙂
JP, neither of us will ever adopt any ideology or dogma, I don’t where the “for now” thing comes from.
Just a little (lack of an) afterlife humor, I’d say, Len.
I had in mind the ever after. It was a poor attempt at a joke and an opportunity that I should have let go by, as this is a subject of deeply held belief all around. My apologies.
Tee-hee!
Woody Allen: “I’m an Atheist, my wife’s agnostic. We had HUGE fights over which religion NOT to bring our kids up in”
That is interesting because apart from Jeeps and Ford trucks, American vehicles were unknown in my family (and I was born and raised in the Midwest). My parents went for the European stuff for their cars. VWs, Volvos, a Saab 900S and a Mercedes W126 figured prominently in their garage.
I think Ford dropped the I6 after 1983 in the Fox-body sedan when the “Fox-LTD” replaced the Fairmont and the short-lived “Fox-Granada”. Dodge did the same after 1983.
There was a French ad aired on Quebec, Canada who did a comparo ad featuring the Cressida with a Mercedes and a BMW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0poAkr3fo
This is one model or should I said the nameplate then Toyota shouldn’t dropped. If the Avalon was called Cressida, it would had probably more successeful.
You’re right about the Fox-LTD; it and the Fox Marquis had the Essex V6 as the standard engine. I’m pretty sure that the V6 also replaced the 200-cid six in the Fox based Granada for 1982, although the 200 was available until the end of the Fairmont’s model run in 1983.
The 1983 Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr were the last FoMoCo passenger cars available with straight sixes. Full-size trucks and vans continued to use straight sixes into the 1990s.
Chrysler was done with straight sixes in passenger cars right around the same time — Dodge Diplomats/Plymouth Gran Furys built after ’83 or so were all V8s. Full-size trucks and vans continued to use the straight six until somewhere around ’87, when Chrysler finally introduced its first domestic-built V6. (In the 1984-87 period, while Chrysler built lots of cars with fours and V8s, few if any passenger car models were available with sixes, and any that were had Mitsubishi V6s.)
GM was the first of the Big Three to commit heavily to V6s. The last GM passenger cars to come with straight sixes were the 1979 Chevy Nova, Camaro, Impala and Caprice. Full-size trucks and vans continued to use straight sixes exclusively through 1984, and I think the heavy-duty 292 straight six lasted all the way to the end of the then-current styling generation in 1987.
The 200 CID six was available in the 1982 Granada – I factory ordered one with it that year, with bucket seats and an automatic floor shift, and a heavy duty suspension. An unusually optioned car that was indestructible; indeed, the person I sold it to decades ago is still driving it. Slow, yes, but well built and with dead reliable mechanicals.
Lots of friends had the Cressidas in these years and they were very good cars. One friend had an 83 wagon bought new that accumulated 250K miles with almost zero problems. The later models seemed to be more complex and when they started to go bad, the costs could really pile up. You still see a few on the road here in SoCal.
AMC Concord and Eagle had the 232 and 258 I6s.
I guess you could throw the Volvo 740/760 turbodiesel in there. I have never seen one in real life though; Wiki says that they were only sold in the US from 1983 to 1985 as the 760 and then in 1986 as the 740. (All supposedly had the same VW-based turbodiesel I6.) Can any Volvo experts chime in?
The platform did get another I6 later on: the 960’s gas “modular” engine from 1991-1998.
I always liked the Cressida. It looks classy and utilitarian at the same time.
Great story, but man-o-man you need to get a car that isn’t a beater/and/or a moneypit. My experience is spending a little more for a good car is worth it in the short and long run! There is a reason things are cheap.
But then we wouldn’t have all of these great stories! I say, you ought to try for a Sterling or a Maserati Biturbo next. 🙂
Don’t forget the Lancia Beta’s.
I drove a virtually identical, heavily-optioned 1984 Cressida, from 1995-2006. My longest automotive relationship ever, and my happiest. That 2.8 was the perfect powerplant for a five-seater midsize: large enough to deliver effortlessly smooth and civilized speed; yet small enough not to kill you at the pumps.
Good ol’ “Betsy” only went to the grave when she did because her timing chain finally snapped (I was quoted $700 to fix; well above Blue Book for a 22-year-old Toyota); and her original burgundy paint was peeling off in huge patches like a horrible sunburn, making her something of an eyesore. My neighbors might have been glad to see Betsy go, but I wasn’t.
Finally you got a car worth owning yes I know you liked the other ones but these were actually good and reliable and long lasting. The bimmer was nice if you like pouring money down a drain but Cressidas didnt need that .BTW Principal Dan any well tuned Holden or Falcon 6 could eat a Cressida fast and great cornering material they werent, but for sheer reliability they were hard to beat the 5M engine was an updated 4M which were very hard to kill I towed much heavier loads than the Caddy/Chev combination featured elsewhere with a 4M Corona no problemo. Len is right the more you spend purchasing translates into lower/less repair bills
I belatedly came to have a thing for these cars. Unfortunately, by the time I developed an appreciation for them, they were getting hard to find. This car and the concurrent Nissan Maxima should have made it into my driveway at one time or another. Maybe someday.
Always liked these. The only thing that I object to are the passive shoulder belts.
There was a seller on ebay about a year ago that had two Cressidas in great condition up for auction, one an 84 and the other an 87 (pictured). The 84 had 67k and was a little cheaper, but had a digital dash, so I would’ve paid the extra cash for the 87.
My bad. Here’s the 84.
We test drove the Cressida and Maxima in 1987. The Maxima was quicker, but the Cressida was quite a bit more comfortable and felt roomier inside. We ended up buying a new Volvo 745GLE, which was slower but fit the baby things much better. The 745 is still the most comfortable car I have ever had.
My dad bought an 87 Maxima at the same time and it served him well for 13 years.
There’s a part of me that regrets that these sorts of sensible, conservative, moderately upscale sedans have all but perished in the onslaught of micro-niche segmentation, pseudo-SUV crossovers, and aggressive brand marketing. There’s still the Avalon, I suppose, which just got a disjointed facelift, and the last time I checked, they still sold the Maxima, although I don’t recall actually seeing one.
The Maxima is now actually smaller inside than the Altima. We’ll see what Nissan does I would love the Maxima to go 100+ cu ft of interior room but keep up the performance.
The current Maxima felt gigantic inside to me when I had one as a rental in the fall of 2012 on a work trip, but I drive a 3-series and a Mini normally. Perspective, I guess.
With the 3.5 liter 290 hp V6, the CVT actually doesn’t suck either. Not like in a Sentra or 4-cylinder Altima, which have that awful rubber band feel with the engine screaming away at a constant 6,000 rpms on hard acceleration.
I’ve recently seen a Cressida of about this vintage a couple of times. Not a common sight on the streets of Massachusetts — these weren’t huge sellers to begin with, and daily drivers from that era are getting fairly uncommon.
If I’m gonna buy a Cressida it has to be a wagon. Sorta like a Japanese Volvo only trimmed out inside like a Buick Electra. Shame it didn’t sell better in the US, just another example of how the country that invented the station wagon has turned its back on them.
In 1989 the young woman realtor I used to sell my house drove a 5 speed Cressida. At the time it seemed fairly unusual, and in retrospect it was. Last year I got rear-ended by an uninsured high school kid driving a second-gen Cressida, and when I filed a claim with my insurance, and was asked what kind of car hot me, the claims rep had never heard of a Cressida. I thought insurance workers knew every possible car.
i used to have two cressidas one 83 wagon with 5 spd manual(i realley miss it)&89 sedan with autotrans second one was a total p.o.junk tons of electrical issues&blow head gasket right before 90k miles,i do not miss that car at all.toyota made some junky 6 cylender motors in 80s&early 90s like the 3.0 v6 on 4runner,t100,pickup,v6 camry&lexus 250(2.5 v6).
Nice car, but what’s up with the Magnaflow exhaust? I guess I’m becoming an old fart and get tired of hearing fart cans and other loud exhausts.
Sport seats available in the Cressida??? Anyone have pics?
I still have a thing for old, RWD, straight six-powered Japanese sedans, hence the C35 Nissan Laurel in the driveway (and previous to it, a C34 Laurel, an R33 Skyline, and a C33 Laurel). Toyota and Nissan made some very well engineered RWD cars back in the 80s, and although I’m a Nissan fan, I’m always sorely tempted by the MX73 GLX 2.8i. My grandparents had one as a courtesy car back in ’86 when their ’84 Fairmont was being fixed yet again under warranty (dodgy EFi), and they loved it, but Grandad had fought in WWII, and wouldn’t buy a Japanese car.
The MX73 has really nice styling – which included the unusual feature with the taillights: they can turned upside down and mounted on the opposite side of the car. No I don’t know why, but I’m guessing it was a clever bit of cost-cutting for the JDM Cresta/Chaser/Mk II versions. Either that or Toyota wanted to create a fun piece of useless trivia in years to come!