![]() Even if the rwd small hatch market was a dead end in 1980, I don’t think anybody had refined that concept to such an extent than Toyota did with the Starlet. And it don’t have to be a bad thing to use proven technology, if the product have been refined during the meantime. The production cost and r&d for the Starlet must’ve been very small. So, we’re already talking early 70’s if not late 60’s tech here. But to my knowledge, the Starlet was only a rebody of the ’73 Publica Starlet, itself a shortened Corolla of the previous generation. I’m not an expert, and perhaps someone like Aaron Severson could shed some light on this. The Tercel 4WD was continued to be sold, but not the hatchback Tercel.īesides, the Starlet was made on ancient and thus proven technology. And then we got the second generation Tercel in ’82, just to have it orphaned after only two years with the arrival of the fwd Corolla in ’84. In Sweden for example, we got the Starlet, but not the first generation of the Tercel. In some parts of the world at that time, cars were more status symbols than appliances, and a fwd hatchback simply wouldn’t do if you could have an rwd sedan for the same money. On some markets there was overlap while other markets got the one but not the other. Also, both cars weren’t sold simultaneously on all markets. Toyota was a very conservative company at the time, and they simply hedged its bets. Once I moved there, it took me 4 more years before I finally traded my existing car in for one with AC.īack then, one of my Co-workers bought a Tercel, I thought it an odd looking car (I liked that it had FWD back then)….I prefered the Starlet styling anyhow. The Starlet worked out OK for me…it did’t have air conditioning, which I also thought was a bit odd (this was in the deep south) but I didn’t remember minding. Five years before that, while in college, I was a transporter for Hertz (moved the one-way rentals back to their home location) and never came across a single manual transmission, even in small cars, so even then I thought it was unusual. I wanted them to rent me an inexpensive car as I’d be paying for it myself (I don’t remember why the company I was interviewing with didn’t pay for the rental car)…and they rented a ’83 Starlet for me….it was the only rental car I ever drove that had a manual transmission. My youngest sister died fairly young, and when someone mentions the particular model car she drove in college (she owned two of them) I aways think of her.Īs for the Starlet, It reminds me of an interviewing trip I made 32 years ago…I was trying to move closer to my parents (my Dad was in ailing health) and they helped me rent a car to drive to a nearby city for the interview. Sorry to hear an automotive memory tied to your deceased wife. My more in-depth CC of a yellow Starlet is hereĪnd one of its successor, the Tercel: “Toyota Nails Another One” That kind of consistency is how Toyota ended up as the world’s largest manufacturer.ĭon’t be surprised if you see another update on this car in 2020. But when it was effectively replaced with the all-new FWD Tercel, unlike GM’s new FWD X Cars, the Tercel quickly developed a rep for being equally reliable and rugged, including the first year of production. ![]() The Starlet was as simple and straight-forward as it got, with tried and proven components. It was precisely what attracted folks to them from the beginning. But basic mechanical quality and durability? It was mostly there from the get-go. And why do I still hear comments here not infrequently that suggest that Japanese cars were junky back then? Ok, rust resistance was an issue, one that the Japanese weren’t alone in having to overcome. The only repair he had to make outside of normal wear items was to replace some valve springs. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s around 350k now. I haven’t run into Art, its owner, in a few years, but when I spoke to him in 2010 about his Starlet, it already had 300k miles on it. So when I saw it again the other day, I decided a little follow-up was in order. Now that was a bit of a blow to the German collective ego. I finally shot in 2010 and wrote it up at the old site, titled “ The Most Reliable Car Ever Built?” Obviously, that’s debatable, but these RWD Starlets were about as simple and rugged as it got, in terms of old-school Toyotas.Īnd it wasn’t just me in Germany back at the time, this generation of Starlet jumped to the top of the much-watched ADAC “ Pannenstatistik” for three years straight, beating out the long-time winner, the Mercedes W123 diesel. And he’s still driving it twenty-two years later. My older son’s 5th grade teacher was already driving it back in 1993, and I took note of it back then, when it was merely some ten years old. When I started documenting Eugene’s Curbside Classics in 2009, this particular car was on my mind as one of the first to write up.
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