Today’s Curbside Classic is a cautionary tale; a lesson in how difficult it is to predict the future, and how humbling it can be to bet on the wrong pony (car).
In 1972, I worked briefly on a small construction crew in Iowa City. Two of the young guys had just bought brand new cars. They were both painted silver, and were sporty coupes, but couldn’t have been more different otherwise. One bought a base Mustang coupe, just like in this picture, right down to the wheel covers. The other one bought a Celica Coupe, pretty much like this one. And the two of them argued endlessly about which one had made the better choice.
Frankly, I thought they were both nuts to hock themselves at their tender age; I was driving a hand-me-down 1962 Corvair, and hit the road with it as soon as I had saved a few hundred bucks, leaving them to dig footings, keep their argument going, and make their payments for the next 36 months. But that’s beside the point, mostly. Of course I got caught up in the debate, and you probably won’t be surprised with which camp of the pony wars I had enlisted with.
You didn’t really need to be a very early Toyota fanboy for that. The 1971 – 1973 Mustang was not only the nadir of Mustangs, but pretty much of the the whole pony car segment. It had lost its direction, and was rather overwrought and excessive in just about every way possible. And though it reflected badly on Ford, all of the Big Three were similarly guilty at the time, with a few exceptions. As I looked at that bloated Mustang with its white wall tires and vinyl top, my personal Detroit DeathWatch ratcheted up a few notches. I just couldn’t see where they were going, other than off an inevitable cliff.
Yes, the Celica was a skinny little underfed Japanese kid (2200 lbs), and its approx. 90hp 2.0L four hardly set the world on fire. For the times, it was lively, and compared to the Mustang, it was actually fun to drive. The stick shift was slick, the engine was willing, and at least it sounded and felt like it was trying hard. The manual steering and handling were…well, not up to BMW 2002 standards, but you could toss it around on the back roads and have a ball. It was so slim, one wore it like a suit. In comparison, the Mustang might have been your grandmother’s Grand Torino or LTD coupe: dull, soft, and slow; its de-smogged 302 losing out to the battle of its bulge.
The original Mustang, especially a bare-bones six with a stick, was much closer akin to the Celica than its 1973 namesake. And Toyota’s timing with the Celica was perfect, even more so a year later when the energy crisis hit. The drastically-downsized Mustang II was Ford’s acknowledgment that the Celica had it right.
But by that time, the Celica had won over a lot of loyal fans, especially with its 1975 refresh and the very 1969-Mustang-esque Liftback.
And with the very handsome 1978 restyle, which was penned at Toyota’s brand-new Calty SoCal studio, it seemed that the Celica was well on its way to becoming America’s new pony sweetheart.
That was quite the trick too, considering that this first gen Celica is very Japanese in style and feel. Yes, inspiration and the popularization of the affordable sporty coupe segment may be largely attributed to the original Mustang, but the execution here, especially the details, are anything but Detroit. Actually, the gen1 Celica was progressively “Americanized” throughout its fairly long lifespan, losing the original up-curved face and its delicate little geisha-butt. By the mid-seventies, Toyota knew clearly where the greatest opportunity for growth lay, and opening up the styling studio in California made that official.
We’re not going to recap the whole pony car wars here, and we all know how the Celica story ended. Not like I predicted in 1972; that’s for sure. But in the mid eighties, two significant events turned the tide: the lightweight Fox-body Mustang GT reappeared with its lusty 302, and the Celica went to a FWD platform. Ford had rediscovered its roots and thrived; the Celica went a different direction, which ultimately petered out more or less, unless we consider the Scion Tc its spiritual successor. Or is it over-reaching to consider the Toyota 86 (Scion FR-S) as legitimate successors? Now that would change the otherwise bleak demise of the Celica considerably. That’s not to say it didn’t leave some highly memorable (All-trac turbo), fun and reliable cars along the way.
I’m a sucker for late-sixties to early-seventies Japanese design, even when it descends into kitsch, or worse. It was a time when the Japanese were finding a unique design language of their own, after they stopped blatantly imitating and before they either mastered a more universally acceptable look, or opened styling studios in California (and Europe). I don’t know where the Juke was designed, but Nissan is certainly more than willing to mainstream distinctly Japanese vehicles, like Cube. Meanwhile, Toyota’s Scions, some of them specifically designed for the NA market, are stylistic dullards. Toyota’s race to dominate the American market extracted a price.
The owner of this particular Celica is very representative of so many other Curbside Classics. She’s a young woman who works in the cafe at my neighborhood market, and it was her uncle’s car, who had bought it new. Family keepsakes, passed from generation to generation, like genes. It’s her daily driver, having learned what it takes to keep a vintage Toyota on the road. I smile every time I see it, even though it humbles me to remember how cock-sure I was about its future in 1972.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Honda today is a prime example of getting bigger every generation. Why auto makers do that is beyond me. One would think with fewer kids and an older generation of people smaller would be their direction.
Yeah I’ve noticed that with them as well. Can’t wrap my mind around a 3000 pound Civic. Other small cars too: The “new” front engined VW Beetles, got wider and porkier. Even the Mini Coopers: saw one yesterday about the size and shape of your average minivan. Don’t even get me going on utterly ridiculous upsizing of pickup trucks; they’re well beyond the point of self-caricature now. How far are we away from them sporting flap-stacks and cab-step fuel tanks?
Not 100% but think the Juke was designed in the UK
My next door neighbor had a cool, bright red Toyota Corona 4 door 4 speed in 1977 and into 1978; not as sporty as the Ceilca, but it was a neat car to take surfing.
Had a silver 1979 Celica GT w/louvers, bought it new, it was indestructible. And style wise, it held its own for about a decade.
The Toyota product with 20/20 hindsight was the better buy, When it was new you needed 60% deposit and a 12 month payment period made anything new expensive unless it was a commercial, govt restriction on finance, not helpful, neither was the red tape surrounding a US import back then, you also struggled to get a Celica unless like my mate you did the personal luggage racket and bought in Japan, pre internet in the mid 70s that wasnt easy like today, that guy made a career out of exJDM used cars and motorcycles.
Had a 1976 Toyota Celica when I was in my 20s. It was the year 1992,I think. Found it in a grocery store parking lot, left a note with my name and number on the windshield saying of you ever decide to sell it give call. 6 months later I got the call. It was in mint condition, garage car and he sold out to me for 2 grand. I ended up losing it in a divorce, the only thing he wanted was my car. We had a daughter and her threatened to take from me if I didn’t give him car and so there was no question, he got the car. A month after the divorce he sent me pictures in the mail of the totally gutted, spray painted black, sitting in a junk yard. I was devastated.
The top of my bucket list is a 1976 Toyota Celica. Going one day I will have another one.
When the first Celica hit American streets in the fall of 1971 as a 1972 model, it was the first shot in the Asian invasion of North America. Smaller than a Pinto, but with about the same horsepower, it was nimble and light on it’s feet, unlike American compacts of the era, which felt like what they were, which was shrunken full-size cars that were slow and handled poorly compared to their Asian competition. They were popular with newly graduated college students and working young adults, who needed reliable, basic transportation that was easy on gas, while adding a dose of fun into the mix. Used examples began to show up in high school parking lots with increasing frequency as the decade wore on, suffering from the rust that killed most of them, often covered in grey primer by their owners doing their own body work to keep these cars alive.
I was still in elementary school when the first examples rolled out in the 1972, but they acquired a certain cachet in high school, along with the VW Rabbit and Sirocco, as fun and inexpensive cars that could be had on a high school student’s salary at a part time job.
By the time I graduated from college in 1984, the Celica had moved upmarket, with the Celica All-Trac Turbo at the top of the heap. Most all Celicas had a bad Achilles Heel: Rust. Most didn’t survive the road salt on American roads and ended up being crushed and shipped back to Japan as scrap metal, only to be recycled into new Toyotas, LOL!
I agree the paths between the two cars diverged with the Fox body Mustang. While ironically based on humble sedan roots, the Mustang went more muscle car as it evolved. The Celica dropped the turbos and AWD and went more FWD sporty econobox as it evolved.
Ford almost went the same direction as the Celica with the what eventually would become the Ford Probe, but decided instead to go with an updated Fox body. Both the Probe and the Celica are long gone, So it turned out Ford may have been right.