This COAL proved to be quite a challenge to write. While the Corolla was a perfectly fine car over two years of ownership, there wasn’t much happening in my life to create car memories and the car itself didn’t provide much in the way of excitement, good or bad.
Upon graduation from Clarkson in 1979 with a BS in Industrial Distribution and about 2.0 GPA, I accepted a great job offer (ahem, my only job offer) from a start up electrical contractor based in Syracuse. I found an apartment in downtown Liverpool, just a block from Onondaga Lake and just two blocks from Heid’s Hotdogs, a local favorite for generations.
My boss had a vision for how to grow his business which involved investing in computer based estimating to help manage material and labor takeoffs. This was just 3 years or so before IBM introduced their PC. Our computer was about the size of an early PC but the software was on something that looked like a shrunken 8 track tape. No monitor, the only output was to a Digital DECwriter. Input was through a measuring wheel, pen or 10 keypad. I guess he figured that a young college kid could pretty quickly learn how this new method worked if he didn’t have to forget all he knew about pencil and paper estimating. He was right, once I acquired a basic understanding of electrical construction, I became pretty adept at cranking out accurate estimates and winning bids.
While our business was based in Syracuse, we did projects all over New York. It became clear that my old Beetle was not going to be up to the task of job site visits on a regular basis, so I started looking for a new set of wheels. I found a low mileage, 1975 two door Corolla for sale nearby and went to take a look. The exterior was in great shape, a shade of red that Toyota called…red. The all black interior was likewise clean except for the driver’s seat back which was bent back at an awkward angle. One look at the somewhat overweight owner told me what happened there. Fortunately, he had already sourced a replacement seat back and it was stowed in the back, awaiting installation.
Coming from my ratty old Beetle, the Corolla was such a grown up car. The 1.6 liter, 2T-C engine was coupled to a slick shifting 4 speed manual transmission. Power ratings are hard to pin down but let’s call it 75 HP, a big upgrade over the Beetle. As noted in reviews of the time, the Corolla was a bit of a heavy weight, especially when compared to the VW Rabbit and the Datsun B210, but I appreciated that heft, it felt solid. Plus, a real trunk! I knew that while this would be a reliable car, it was old school technology with rear leaf springs and rear wheel drive. While more appreciated now that they are mostly gone, this wasn’t where the action was back in 1979, everyone was moving to FWD.
Mine was the third generation E30, about as basic as you could get in a Corolla. Also in the Corolla line up that year were the 4 door sedan, 4 door wagon, and the 2 door SR5 hardtop. Coming in just a bit later was the 2 door SR5 liftback. This was a period when Toyota was really growing US sales with a wide variety of products including the Celica, Corona, Mark II, Land Cruiser, HiLux pick up; in addition to the Corolla in all of its guises.
As was my way in those days, I started right away on exterior mods. The first was one of those pop up sunroofs that were all the rage. These could be had for less than $200 and, if I remember correctly, could be installed with just a saber saw and a screwdriver. It amazes me now to think of it, but there I was hacking a hole in the roof of my 4 year old Corolla. Apparently it went well because the roof never leaked and the dome light still worked. It did improve flow through ventilation which was important because I did not have A/C in that car.
At some point I started to have trouble with the engine running rough. I should have taken it to a dealer, but back then the nearest Toyota dealer was a bit of a hike from where I was living in Liverpool, so I turned to a recommended local garage. I had it in the shop several times before getting it sorted out. I do remember driving home from work while they were still trying to get it running smoothly. Coming down a slight grade, letting off the gas and hearing a big BOOM, followed by the sound of a car with no muffler. The shop was actually on my way home so I pulled in to have them take a look. We found my muffler had exploded like a grenade. They finally did get it running reasonably well. I always assumed it was the combination of pollution controls and a carburetor not playing well together. All I can say is thank heavens for fuel injection.
The car served me well, if not with much excitement. Things continued to grow in the contracting business and with that, commensurate pay increases. At the time, I was seeing a girl back at Clarkson, resulting in frequent trips up to Potsdam. Between those trips and job site visits, the Corolla really racked up the miles. In the spring of 1981 I started to think about buying my first new car. I enjoyed reading all the road tests and memorizing details about options, colors and such. I would stop in at the import dealers and pick up brochures, acquiring quite a collection. My next car was going to be front wheel drive and a top rated pick, but with a unique personality.
Wow, less than $3000 1975 for one of the world’s most reliable cars and it came with a back seat unlikes the Chevette Scouter and non cardboard door cards unlike the base VW Rabbit. The Rabbit was just in the $3000 band. How much was the Chevette?.
As interesting as as home white goods but more reliable . Most buyers, in this market just wanted basic reliable transportation that would start every cold morning to get to work. The fact it came with white walls and reclining seats as standard trumped most US made cars.
I’m quite sure the whitewalls were extra.
Paul, if you look at the first magazine ad (with the bright yellow Corolla), you’ll see whitewalls listed as standard.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a print ad screaming about the base price like that. I was actually going to write a post about this at some point.
It’s been even longer since I’ve seen an advertised price not end in 95 or 99. $2,711? I guess they didn’t want to price themselves out of the market at $2,795, and couldn’t quite make the numbers work at $2,695.
$13,896 in 2021 money. A new Nissan Versa (I thought it was one of those smaller cars no longer sold here, but there it is on the Nissan site) is $14,980 with obviously way more standard equipment, 122 vs 55 hp, and length of 177 inches vs 157.
Great story 🙂 Can’t wait to read the next installment.
Corollas of this generation – the wagon version specifically – were highly prized by several of my friends back in the mid-to-late 80s. I guess any examples that had soldiered on for 10 years by that time must have proven their durability and provided such a reputation for budget-minded recently-out-of-college folks (like my friends). I recall two of them who literally drove the wheels off of those things until the cars finally rotted away from Northeast/Mid-Atlantic rust. I never quite understood the charm, but I was told that they (the cars) had considerably more personality than the equally common VW Rabbits of the day.
Oh, and also the DECwriter! Reminds me of the College of Engineering computer center down the hall at my first “real” job.
Rust like we can’t imagine today in salt country was indeed the bane of all cars back then. I think Audi was the first to start galvanizing and Japanese cars were the last. Maybe salt isn’t a thing in Japan, but it certainly got to many of them before the more reliable mechanical bits did.
This is a familiar car, as a close friend bought one new in 1975 and I put quite a few miles on it. That includes hitting 100 on a long stretch of a deserted highway on the way to Death Valley. It might have had a very slight downgrade. 🙂
My girlfriend, later wife, had a 1975 Corolla Hardtop (E37) back in the day. This was a lower-priced variant of the SR5 as shown in the foreground of the brochure photo, with the same mechanical specs, including the wonderful 5-speed manual but without the special wheels and SR5 badging. As noted, it was slow, antiquated in terms of design with a cramped rear seat, but it was super reliable.
I had a 1975 VW Rabbit at the time, which was the polar opposite in all respects. It was sprightly when it ran, but I had so much trouble with it. Her Corolla was brown (I’d guess code 415) with a white vinyl interior. Because she lived in Charleston, SC at the time of purchase, the car was equipped with a fully integrated a/c system.
It turned out to be the only true hardtop we had in 45+ years of car ownership.
I’ve written before about the cars in the Hertz fleet in Denver when I worked there during ’74 to ’78.
These Corollas were the first Japanese cars in the fleet there. I don’t remember the model year but I’d guess ’75 or ’76. The only Corollas Hertz had were the four door sedan and the wagon; they were all automatics. These were short term leases from Toyota. I remember they were small, had vinyl interiors and seemed to me to be of very high quality and durability. Colors? There were a lot of green ones and brown ones.
I don’t think the customers liked them very much; they were small. This was when the largest portion of the fleet was Torinos/Montegos, Granadas/Monarchs, Malibus, Matadors and the like. Retrospectively, all junk compared to the Corollas.
We had a few Toyotas in our Hertz fleet up in South Burlington, Vt. when I worked there a few years later (1977-1978). I remember the Corolla liftback, which I liked a lot. A few years later I’d moved to central Texas and a co-worker had that same model Corolla, but his was a manual (all of our cars were automatic…only manual car I ever rented in the US was a Toyota Starlet which my Mother of all people found back in 1983, which I drove to my job interview for this very job). Anyhow, there was a small light that shown down on the automatic shift quadrant between the seats, but they forgot to depopulate it on his manual shift car…he always wondered “what the light was for” till I told him my experience a few years prior with same model car. We also had a ’78 Datsun 510 (new model 510) which I liked…my car at the time was a ’74 Datsun 710, which was in the same (Violet) family. Most of the Hertz cars at our location were predictably Fords, mostly LTDII, but some Granadas, and in ’78, the Fairmont, but we had a few Chryslers (Dodge Diplomat, some Aspens), GM (mostly Chevy Novas). We even had a Mercury Cougar Wagon, which we used to transport drivers one-way to pick up cars….the driver of the Wagon was assured to have the longest trip, as well as the last driver of the car to be picked up (maybe more than one) but even in New England, could be quite a drive, since you didn’t go as the crow flies, and there were of course obstacles like lakes and mountains in the way.
Don’t remember DEC writer, but I worked on many DEC and Data General minis back then (in school, and on my first job out of college). Mostly used teletype “terminals” (they were mostly the old-style teletypes that printed on a roll of paper, some had paper tape readers on the side)….think they used 20mA current loop, not sure, this was before serial ports, let alone USB. We had actual Centronics printers hooked up to parallel ports. First system I ever worked with was a Xerox Sigma 6 mainframe, but even then we had time sharing to 110 baud modems….did some batch, but only with intensive jobs.
These cars were an appealing inflection point in the Corolla’s evolution, I think. Now standard with the 1600 engine that had been a “high performance” option just a few years earlier, plus optional 5 speed, the Liftback version and SR5 trims made these and the next, final RWD version, sporty in a way that earlier nor later versions ever were. Or they could becpractical and simple in 4 door or wagon form. Especially as this was the era when Nissan/Datsun was going downhill fast after their original 510 and 1200 peak.
While this car maybe did not really kill the VW Beetle, it sure seemed that way at the time.
1975 was the year Toyota overtook VW in sales in the US, and Toyota has never looked back.
The 2-TC was, in my opinion, one of the most indestructible engines ever made. They often achieved incredibly long service lives with nothing more than normal maintenance. The engine/drivetrain almost invariably outlasted the rest of the vehicle, at least here in the rust belt. For practical, reliable transportation you couldn’t beat an old Corolla with this engine.
If I could buy a new one today, I would.
IMO Toyota had the best shifting manual transmission and the c-coldest air conditioner of any small car of this time period.
I had a ’75 Corolla during college and my initial career years. Solid, crude, dependable, noisy as hell (6 hr drive from home to college), but got me thru. Sold it in 1984 for as much as I paid for it in 1977.
Replaced with a ’83 Cutlass Supreme; such a big difference.
World’s most popular flavor of ice cream is vanilla.
Not a lot to write about, but there you go.
If I had to write about this car, I’d focus on the fact that in 1975 it was refreshingly different and attractive compared to what came before it.
I remember these well .
No troubles even when purchased by or given to, young folks who’d never take any care of them until they refused to start or died on the road .
There’s much ti be said for a basic transportation appliance like this .
-Nate
A very dreary stretch for Corolla, especially in most other parts of the world (such as Oz) where it soldiered on with the 3K 1.3 four. That’s a tough and fairly characterful unit, but was a flustered by the fat this model had stacked on. Any of the sprightly feel of earlier Corollas was gone, and drew attention to the non-rack steering, the leaf springs, the body-roll, the somewhat crashy ride and poor seats of all Japanese cars of then. Mind, I did a very trip largely in the BACK of the swoopy coupe once, so that tends to darken the memory.
Amongst about five I can recall driving in the later ’80s, I once drove a friend’s ’75 4-door once on a 110F day. Totally reliable even in such extreme conditions, it had freezing a/c, but also the glories of a two-speed automatic, and up a mild hill out in the country, I swear I was overtaken by a strolling koala.
This era Corolla was as hard to like as it was to kill.