CC has featured the third generation Corolla several times already, yet we have yet to get a proper long-form post about it. Perhaps someone will do that one day, but it’s not going to be me. Because you know what? These Corollas are pretty boring, really. So I don’t think I can muster much more than 600 words on the subject, if that.
The E30 Corolla was absolutely planned and designed to be boring. It is a feature, not a bug. That enabled it to be a true world car and be sold all over the globe. It was successful in its home market too, tallying close to 1.2 million units between 1974 and 1979. But it sure makes it more challenging to write about them.
At least, we’ve not had this 4-door JDM variant on CC yet. Toyota ensured there was at least one Corolla for every potential buyer by fielding a bewildering array of body variants and trim levels. You had the standard 4-door saloon and wagon, but two-door Corollas could be had in five different varieties: pillared coupe, hardtop, notchback, liftback and wagon. Not all markets had all seven body styles to choose from, but Japanese customers could also get wagons in super-basic “van” form, bringing the total up to an impressive nine.
Engines included a 1.2, a 1.3, a 1.4 and 1.6 litre 4-cyl. – the smaller one was gone by 1977 in Japan due to emissions regulations, but was still used in some other markets. I have no idea what our CC has, but I do know that it’s a “Hi-Deluxe.” Which means?…
It’s situated smack-dab in the middle of the range, as per the 1978 brochure. Probably the easiest one to obtain at your local Corolla dealership.
When the E30 Corolla was launched, some thought that Toyota had played it a bit too conservative. The 1.4 and 1.6 litre T engines’s only noteworthy feature was their alloy hemi head; the K engines (1.2 and 1.3) were even less adventurous. Initially, these were mated to either a 4-speed manual or the antique 2-speed Toyoglide, though a 5-speed manual and a 3-speed auto were later added. Power was sent to a cart-sprung live axle. By the mid-‘70s, this started to look mighty dated for a small family car.
What Toyota did better than others was to add perceived quality and toys, fleshing out the rather basic Corolla bones with an improved HVAC system, reduced noise and vibration, better seats, superior build quality and the like. That was how they managed to shift millions of these.
But man, what an ugly kisser these have. Ugly rear end, too. And the middle bit’s not much to write home about, either. The big bumpers of this late JDM version don’t help, but even with the slim ones they had circa 1975-76, the overall impression is “meh” at best.
The E30 Corolla was far from the best product Toyota could muster in the ‘70s, yet in many ways it was good enough in a number of key ways to help its maker conquer the world. In many countries, this was the first Toyota that sold in respectable numbers – the first of many, many more. Boring sells, if it’s also reliable, decently made and reasonably cheap. It’s just hard to work up an appetite for plain white rice.
Related posts:
Junkyard Classic: 1977 Toyota Corolla Revisited, by David Saunders
Autobiography: Driving Nirvana — In A 1975 Corolla, by PN
CC Capsule: 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback – The Very First Of Many, by PN
COAL: 1975 Toyota Corolla 2 Door – Dullsville, by RichP
CC Outtake: 1976 (or so) Toyota Corolla (E30) Wagon – And a Toyota Pickup in the Alley, by PN
CC Outtake: 1979 Toyota Corolla – Still Haulin’ The Groceries Too, by PN
The kindest thing I can say about the nose is that it’s still scads better than the contemporary Sprinter sedan
Um, yeah. Thank you for not showing us a picture, seriously.
If anyone is brave, here’s the JDM Sprinter brochure:
https://www.toyota.co.jp/jpn/company/history/75years/vehicle_lineage/catalog/60008781/html5.html
(The facelifted E65 was worse.)
Boring is good… in 1977 both of my wife’s sisters in Baltimore wanted a new compact car for commuting to work. I advised them to get a Toyota or Datsun, of whatever flavor. The younger one, Karen (24 at the time) bought a green ’77 Corolla sedan. The older one Barb (27) bought a blue VW Rabbit 2 door.
12 years later Karen gave her Corolla, still running great, to her niece, who drove it until it rusted completely away some years later. Barb’s VW gave her endless problems, and by the time it was 5 years old she had traded it for a new J2000 Pontiac (!). She seemed to have a tendency to not do her homework and pick very problem-prone cars. And she’s still at it – today she (they) have a BMW X3 and BMW 3 series… some people never learn.
My brother had a ’70 Corolla Sprinter, with the 3K-C engine in ’79ish. 4 speed trans, and really needed a 5 speed for interstate use
It is interesting to think when boring wins. It clearly does now with most buying decisions in the hands of people with no affinity to cars. If Toyota had been out there with such a model as a Corolla in the 1950s, would it have pushed aside big tailfin cars, with stories of reliability, ease of maneuver, and economy. I rather hope it would have just had a niche market, but I wonder.
One thing for sure, if a 50s Corolla had been the standard world car, we would have many fewer caring to read or talk about old cars.
I rented a BL Mini from Avis it died with 5000kms on the odo Avis ugraded me to a near new Corolla this model it was awful, vague steering roly handling and cross winds blew it all over the road, maybe it was just a bad one, who knows
Ya but it least it ran! LOL. The average driver could care less about sportiness.
I had a used ’75 Corolla two door sport coupe. Noisy as hell above 50 MPH (4 speed stick), but got me thru college (300 miles away) and three more years before I sold it for more than what I paid for it.
Plain Jane-yes!! Noisy as hell-yes!! reliable as hell- yes!! economical as hell- yes!!
Just what a college kid needs….less distractions.
Waiting for a tow truck, paying $$$ for repairs, parts on back order, and missing work are not “boring”.
😉
OOpps, I meant not “Fun”. Duh, 😛
That weird vent under the C-pillar. That would be enough to spoil the styling for me. Okay, you need somewhere for the cabin’s fresh-air system to vent – but why there?
But then there’s the raised hood which really doesn’t go with the rest of the car and kind of gives it something I could best describe as a pixie-Brougham look.
And why did Toyota feel the need to ‘update’ them with faux US-spec bumpers? Weird.
Then there’s the odd taillights, which just look wrong somehow, compared to the cleaner originals. I’d backdate it to earlier ones, along with the hood and grille. And bumpers.
But I love that shade of gold. And those wheels.
And if I’m reading the plate correctly, it’s newly registered.
On the wagons the vent is under the rear side window, and on US-market wagons the rear sidemarker light is built into it.
The E30 Corolla was absolutely planned and designed to be boring.
This absolute certainty is based on…interviews with the planners and designers? Corporate execs?
How exactly is it any more boring than say, the Ford Escort of the time? Or the Opel Kadett? Or some other similarly conventional small cars of the time? This is going to sound a bit rude, but hearing someone call a Corolla (or Camry) boring is…boring. It’s a cheap and easy shot that’s been used a million times, and does nothing to actually describe it, or put it into context, or offer some insight or interesting aspect. These cars had lots of positive qualities along with some mundane ones, which is precisely why they became so popular.
I just remembered…it’s de rigeur for Europeans to call Japanese cars boring. You’re off the hook; you couldn’t help it.
As for me, I had one of my most memorable experiences in one of these, bombing across the Mojave at 90-100 mph towards my first encounter with Death Valley. It was the ultimate opposite of boring. Oh, and towing my old VW 400 miles with one. And numerous outings to go skinny dipping in the quarries of rural Iowa with two or three sisters. And…my experiences in one of these is anything but boring. Context is everything.
this was the first Toyota that sold in respectable numbers
You mean this generation Corolla? The previous generation (E20) averaged over 600k per year during its run. Those are not respectable figures? And thanks to the Corolla, Toyota became the #3 import brand in the US by 1972, and the #1 brand by 1975.
Road & Track certainly didn’t find the new ’76 Corolla boring in their review. In fact, they were going to call it the best in its field by far, except then the new Accord showed up.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/vintage-road-track-review-1976-toyota-corolla-sr-5-liftback-a-solid-effort-but-upstaged-by-the-accord/
I have no patience for European chauvinism about Japanese cars either, but Toyota has (or at least had, I haven’t checked to see if they’re still up) some extensive online material about the development of each generation of Corolla development, which reveal that the development team was indeed aware of and rather self-conscious about the Corolla’s stodginess.
The issue they were struggling with was that they knew that part of what had made the Corolla a hit in Japan and North America was that it had a “big car” driving feel, even if that meant things like numb recirculating ball steering that enthusiasts hated. This is why the E70, which arrived in 1979 with a new trailing arm rear axle on coil springs, offered its new rack-and-pinion steering only on the cheaper entry-level models and the sportier versions. The development lead said their assumption was that a lot of the better-equipped grades with bigger engines went to repeat buyers who came in with a certain set of expectations about how the Corolla should feel.
In contrast, the Mk 1 and Mk 2 Escort, which was very similar to the Corolla in concept (cheap, basic engineering, dressed up with a wide range of options, trim levels, and engine choices), won more favor with British and European enthusiasts because Ford had biased even the basic Escort chassis toward sporty driving manners. That came at the expense of ride comfort and some rather twitchy behavior, but it did serve to make the Escort’s overall vibe “crude but fun” where the Corolla was “safe but stodgy.”
Ford also kept up the Escort’s image with the endless array of sporty models like the FAVO Twin Cam, RS, and Mexico. Of course, Toyota had sporty Corollas with twin-cam engines, but they weren’t as prominent outside Japan (I imagine the typical late-seventies American Corolla buyer had no idea they existed) and not nearly so central to the car’s image.
So, while “designed to be boring” is perhaps unnecessarily pejorative, Toyota DID make some conscious choices to steer a more conservative, less exciting path with the Corolla, and that’s reasonably well-documented.
Looks like I touched a nerve or two…
I never claimed the E30 Corolla was the only car of the 70s I found boring. For the record, my family owned a mid-70s Kadett when I was born, and later a 1980 Corolla wagon. They were both pretty damn boring.
But this is unfair: I just remembered…it’s de rigeur for Europeans to call Japanese cars boring. You’re off the hook; you couldn’t help it.
I write up about two Japanese CCs a week, and because of my nationality I’m not allowed to find any of them boring, is that it? Says more about you than it does about me.
Your experiences in the Mojave desert and all that have much more to do with where you were and what you were doing than the car you were driving, it seems. Replace the E30 Corolla with a Fiat or a Chevy, what would have been different exactly?
As to the “respectable numbers” bit, your selective quoting of a portion of a sentence is, again, rather transparently biased. the whole sentence is “In many countries, this was the first Toyota that sold in respectable numbers”. You know, as in countries that might not be the US. Countries that are in Asia, South America, Europe, Africa and all that? For instance, the E30 was the first generation that sold over 20,000 annual sales in Australia, which is where it has remained ever since.
R&T didn’t call it boring? Good for them. I find it boring and within the JDM context, these were about as plain as could be.
Perhaps bland would be a better fit than boring, for this car.
Bland lacks the negative connotations boring has picked up over the years. I feel these Corollas pass underneath my radar, I don’t notice them enough to be actively bored by them. 🙂 .
Interesting to see one in JDM livery. It does make for a rather fussy facia we didn’t get in Central America back in the day.
The 70’s Corollas and Sunnys were in Central America the equivalent of an Impala or such a car. Just about everyone owned one, and still survive in decent numbers to this day. While both Toyota and Nissan started to ascend locally in the late 60’s, it was the E30 and the B210 that established both brands in the common collective. They’ve been such an ever present part of the background, that I have a hard time thinking of them as old cars (they’ll certainly get their post, in due time).
On a personal note, I’m not crazy about either; but both models created a loyal customer base that remain faithful to this day.