Toyota experienced spectacular success in the US with its first two cars, the Corona and the Corolla. These were both highly affordable cars in the two lowest price sectors. It established Toyota as a purveyor of cheap cars whose combination of value, economy, performance and quality were unbeatable. But when it came to moving up into a higher price segment, things were not so easy. Their Crown, which had carved out a small foothold crashed when the new S60 generation’s styling was deemed unpalatable for Americans.
But Toyota did achieve some success with the Corona MK II. The first generation was really just a slightly enlarged and better trimmed Corona. But the second generation was a new and larger car, and came only with six cylinder engines in the US, in the hopes of offering something less controversial and a bit cheaper than the Crown. It did its job, but the kind of success Toyota enjoyed in the low price sector continued to elude it. Why?
In the late ’60s, the baby boomers were ready to start buying new cars, to replace the clapped out VW that had been their first. Toyota quickly became the most popular choice after a new Beetle, but that would change soon too. A growing number of them were happy to plunk down a couple hundred more to get a real car with 90 hp instead of 53, four doors, more interior room, a real heater and an available automatic. Yes, it wasn’t just boomers, as there were folks in their 30s and 40s with a progressive mindset that also went for Toyotas; teachers, professors, engineers, etc.. But America’s “Greatest Generation” largely looked with suspicion at them.
The Corolla, which arrived in 1968, was the ultimate young person’s first new car, and vaulted into the #2 import slot in only its second year; an instant hit. And it would leapfrog the VW in just a couple more years.
In 1969, Toyota expanded its range upwards for the first time, with the Corona Mark II. It was a questionable name, as undoubtedly some assumed it was meant to replace the Corona. In reality, it was largely a Corona under the skin, enlarged a bit, and for North America, it came only with the new R series SOHC four, in 1.9 and 2.0 L versions.
As it turns out, the first Toyota I ever drove was a blue MkII sedan like this one Dave Skinner found and wrote up here. It belonged to a girlfriend’s dad, who was a violin professor at the UI. I drove it once or twice when we went to a local quarry for a bit of au naturel swimming. The driving experience was classic Toyota: unexciting and uninspiring, yet exuding a self-assured air of quality and Japanese precision. The engine hummed, the manual transmission shifted perfectly, the interior was a very pleasant place to be and the steering and handling were both humdrum.
Toyota did also sell their top model, the Crown, in the US, but the first generation (S40, 1962-1967), which Don Andreina wrote up here, was a rare sight outside of California, as Toyota’s distribution was still mostly West Coast, and Toyota didn’t really advertise it much.
Its successor, the S50 (1967-1971) sold significantly better, but never in large numbers. Its price in 1969 was $2785 for the sedan, a couple hundred dollars less than a Volvo 144S. And it had a smooth 2.3L six to boot. But Toyota just wasn’t yet a brand that inspired the up-and-coming Yuppie set. And in terms of size and features, it couldn’t compete with Detroit’s offerings, which invariably offered more pounds for the dollar.
But when the newly-styled S60 generation Crown appeared in 1971, its unusual front end styling destroyed whatever inroads Toyota was making with the S50. The S50 was innocuous and conservative, which was exactly what its buyers were like. The S60 jumped the shark, and was rejected, and Toyota had to pull it off the market after just two years.
But Toyota had a fallback: the new 1973 (X10) Mark II, which was bigger all-round, and now sported the same 2.3 L M-Series six as the Crown had. And within six months, it got the larger 2.6 L version. This would be Toyota’s new top of the line in the US, including a hardtop coupe, sedan and wagon.
Its styling was very much a la mode Japan early ’70s, undoubtedly inspired a bit American cars like the ’71 Mopar coupes and such, along with a healthy dollop from Europe in certain details. Japan was finding its own design language, sometimes controversial, but unlike the more extreme examples of that, the new Mark II was not exactly outside the comfort zone of Americans.
What seemed like a fairly large Toyota at the time is now a quite small car in modern standards. And it doesn’t exactly exude the same gravitas as did the timeless box of a Volvo 144/240, or a low-end (relatively) Mercedes. This was the problem with the Mark II: it was still just an oversized Corolla in the minds of most Americans. At least the Crown had tried to look like a genuine upscale car; not so the Mark II.
And although it was called the Mark II in advertisements, it was still badged as the Corona Mark II, which did little to enhance its status. Kind of a dumb move, actually. It just reinforced the idea that this was more a high-trim Corona than a standard bearer for the top end of the Toyota line. Not the crowning glory of the brand, in other words.
The interior did little to change that impression. Well, the dash was more complex, as was the console, but in terms of general ambiance or quality of the materials, it was no…Volvo.
The back seat was encumbered by the intruding rear wheel well, a bit archaic and the result of a…whoa; I just checked and the wagon oddly had a shorter (101.8″) wheelbase than the sedan and coupe (104.1″). Now that’s exactly the reverse of what Peugeot was doing with its wagons. What gives? No wonder that seat looks crunched by those wheel wells. Unfortunately Google is not dishing up any pictures of sedan rear seats.
The cargo area of this wagon, which appeared in my neighborhood’s most prolific old car collector recently, is being put to good use.
This one is obviously a ’74 or later version, with the mandatory 5-mile bumpers. This generation Mark II was sold through the 1976 model year. How many? I can’t find any stats, but it was not very many. But the dad of my GF who had that earlier Mark II did upgrade to this generation, so there were some loyal followers.
It was replaced for 1977 by the Cressida. It was still the Mark II in Japan, but for export markets, Toyota decided to rename it. Good call, as the Cressida in its several generations slowly but steadily increased its sales and image in the US. This woody wagon was a long-time fixture in Eugene, but finally disappeared.
The Cressida steadily improved its quality and image rep, and became something of a proto-Lexus towards the end of its run. The boomers that started with Corollas were now more ready, willing and able to plunk down Volvo money for a Toyota.
French-style yellow high beams grace this one’s front end.
And this little detail confirms this is from the Japanese version of the Brougham Era. Or just the…ah…exceptional era.
Thanks to its custom license plate surround, we know this is a 1974. Thank you!
And thank you for showing up and gracing our neighborhood. You’re a most welcome addition, given the increasingly boring streetscape.
I had a 74 MK2 Corona sedan 2.6 4M engine auto and a 72 hardtop as a parts car only used the rims towbar and rocker shaft then dumped the rest keeping the 5 speed box in case I did a manual swap, they werent bad cars to drive very 70s Japanese with lots of understeer but the engine pulled well and it went ok though not very economical and the boot/trunk is small wish I’d kept it and taken it back to NZ with me they werent sold here and it might have been worth something to the old jap car obsessed kids.
What’s this? A Toyota that Australia received but NZ missed out on? How bizzare!
No great loss. Not one of my favourite Toyotas. I much preferred the 1st generation shovel nose Mark2.
Unfortunately Toyota Oz imported about only 900 hardtops (which was great but none of the sedans or cool wagons) of the first generation, with the more powerful twin carb manuals fortunately forgoing the nasty strip speedometer of the automatics.
And yet we had to endure the relative much more successful (in terms of sales volume) replacement model as featured in this article. Here was a typical boring Japanese car of the period and in their day they seemed to be everywhere. Not even the twin cam GSS version would get me on board.
I had no idea the wagon had a shorter wheelbase, and why this was the case. Only reason I can think of is perhaps the wagon was somehow based on the chassis of a slightly smaller Toyota with a leaf sprung rear end (perhaps the RT1xx Coronas) and clothed with the front clip and associated panels of the Mark 2, finished with the unique wagon rear end.
I wonder if the Japanese yen was was a stronger currency during the 70s than the 60s? That would explain why the $2,785 base price seems a little bit inflated to me. Besides that, it is because of this car (and the Celica) that Toyota became more of a household name in the U.S. Good on it!
From about 1968-ish until well into the 70s the dollar was weak relative to other currencies. I can’t recall if it was 1976 or 1980 when Ronald Reagan was running for president he quipped that because everyone was concerned about his age he went in for a full physical. “My doctor told me I’m sound as a dollar. I nearly fainted dead away.”
This was what priced German-built Opels out of the US around 1976.
The dollar was pretty strong against the mark until about 1973, then dropped a lot over a couple of years and stayed there.
Economically, strong currency and weak currency are a mixed bag. Weak currency is great for exports and sucks if you’re importing. Japanese equities are notably sensitive to the strength of the yen; yen up, stocks down.
The recent example is the Aussie Pontiac GTO. In the year and a bit from announcement to showroom, the Aussie dollar went from about $.50 USD to $.70. Yay, Australia! Sorry, Holden!
The dollar started dropping against the mark in 1971.
I like these. The brown woody wagon has a Volare shape to it, with a Mustang II-ish front end, (if you squint hard enough). The blue S50 wagon is a clean design – that brochure photo wouldn’t fly today though! Some interesting stuff in the background of the featured vehicle – have those been covered here?
Thank you for the swell write up on quite a neat looking car and the vintage license plates are a sweet bonus. The only part of this car’s styling that looks odd to me is how the taillights and tailgate work together to remind me of the brow on a Bloodhound.
Haha! That’s rather good. I had similar thoughts about that tail, but couldn’t name it.
Mind you, it’d be a bit odd if it was sniffing from that end.
Interesting write up. Even as a kid I thought the Corona Mark 2 nomenclature was odd, having no understanding of what “mark” might mean. They came here as 2 litre then 2.6 litre sixes in ’72, and were clearly not a Corona. Fairly stylish, if a bit cheaply melodramatic in the styling details in the way many Japanese cars of then were.
I got a lift in one a bit as an eight y.o., owned by a grumpy, buck-toothed, thickly bespectacled, and, well – god forgive me – rather unfortunate-looking middle-aged lady from the parish. I associate the rather fangy grille and the messy, thin-looking dashboard with her face. It is possible my assessment of the car is not entirely rational.
The Crowns soldiered on here until the late ’80’s, always popular with (as you say) a very conservative crowd of older buyers. Quite well-ish off ones, too, given the pricing. The Cressida quite literally seemed to appeal to a younger version of the same set. All of the cars respected by everyone for their known reliability.
Glad to see the return of Eugene-required missing door-panel, though it is clear from it’s location in the back that it was a rush job to comply with the ordinance.
So the Corona Mark II was basically the ’70s equivalent of today’s Avalon, no?
Even in recent years, I still can’t tell the difference between an Avalon and a relatively mundane Camry.
Kindasorta—they’re in place of the high beams, anyway. Those are № 4412A sealed beam fog lamps, “A” for “Amber” even though they’re actually yellow. Very minimal performance, and that’s saying something; even world’s-finest front fog lamps are of mostly almost no real value even when used properly. Used with high beams of any kind they’re worse than useless. And deleting the high-beam-only lamp from a 4-lamp system leaves the driver with completely inadequate high beams; the high beam setting on the high/low lamp is weak and diffuse, meant to provide some width and fill while the dedicated high-beam lamp provides the distance punch.
But all of that might not matter at all to someone who only drives in built-up areas in soggy Oregon and never uses high beams. And I’ll concede the yellow sealed beams add some visual zing to the front of the car.
I think it’s a damn shame Americans rejected the S60, which is not only a nifty- and fine-looking automobile, but also really doesn’t strike me as a sharp departure from a lot of the American cars of the time, especially the Mopars and AMCs.
I liked the ’71 Crown, but I was 10. 🙂
In my view Toyota’s early naming gymnastics was a mess. From the beginning everyone knew what a “Toyota Corona” was. My midwestern father called every Toyota a Toyota Corona for quite awhile after that stopped being true.
So the Corolla was smaller? Fine. But then the Corona (the car that introduced the US to Toyota) sort of flailed around until nobody knew what it meant or what it was. Then it went away. I still think it was the best model name Toyota ever had.
I also cannot really get on board with Toyota’s styling of this period. Just a combination of awkward and odd.
“How many? I can’t find any stats, but it was not very many.”
A couple of years ago, I came across the document below, which has historical year-by-year, model-by-model Toyota sales. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but the numbers seem plausible to me:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EFmfFTv-pDkdUuxJ_Ga20nglbcYZqefJklW72ZUeCKA/pub
Note the following:
–The document doesn’t say whether these figures are CY or MY. I’m guessing they are CY.
–The overall category/brand/corporate totals clearly aren’t calculated correctly, as they multiple count models that are given multiple rows in the spreadsheet, like Corollas and pickups. For example, the 1971 passenger car total of 401K double counts the 116K Corollas sold that year, and the 1971 truck total of 39K double counts the 14K pickups sold that year. The 1971 passenger car total should be more like 234K, and the truck total should be more like 24K.
–These totals seem to exclude Hawaii, with a grand total for Hawaii provided at the bottom.
“The Corolla, which arrived in 1968, was the ultimate young person’s first new car, and vaulted into the #2 import slot in only its second year; an instant hit.”
The Corolla was unquestionably an instant hit and quickly became one of the best selling import models in the U.S. If the numbers at the link above are accurate, though, I think it’s questionable whether it actually rose as high as #2 as quickly as 1969. See the discussion in the thread below:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/cc-capsule-1981-toyota-corolla-3-door-wagon-too-beige-or-not-too-beige/
You’ve found a bit of a gold mine there. I’ve never seen anything like it. Thanks!
As to the Corolla, I did a bit of Googling just now, and yes, I got that wrong. The Corolla’s strong sales in 1969 propelled Toyota to the #2 import brand (over Opel, presumably), but I did find some sources say that in 1970, the Corolla became the #2 selling import car behind the VW Beetle.
I’m still trying to finish up my spreadsheet of US car sales by model, which seems to be not available anywhere except from some subscription services. I’m adding up the sales by the specific model variants in the Standard Encyclopedia to give me more useful info. It’s unfortunate that they didn’t do that. Tedious work. 🙁
Toyota Motor Sales USA is not the distributor for Hawaii. That is why they are listed separately.
Those early 1970’s numbers for Corolla reflect what I saw in California back then. Particularly, Corolla wagons were the choice of young families.
I remember the Corona Mark II. I had a neighbour when I was a boy who owned one. Theirs was a 1975-76 sedan. It was a chocolate brown colour, which didn’t win it any favours as far as appearance was concerned. But overall, it wasn’t a bad looking car. Sadly, the owner wrecked it in an accident. I believe they replaced it with a Mazda 626, a good car, but not as attractive as the Corona Mark II. :'(
The gold 74 wagon was my old car; I picked it up in Portland in maybe 2016 and drove it to Central Oregon on its 1990s tires over Mt Hood, cracking all the way. I had the license plates redone, put the plate frame on it, and put the yellow high beams in it. It ran and drove but had no reverse, had a cracked exhaust manifold, broken hatch glass and the carb needed a rebuild… not to mention spots of rust and a bad gold respray on it. I have additional pics of it with original hubcaps and steelies. Sold with an entire spare rear hatch that I had shipped from Albuquerque, in green… I see the glass made it in. Never should have let it go. I hope the owner enjoys it.