Tiny little Toyota in Bay Ridge

TINY LITTLE TOYOTA IN BAY RIDGE

Wipe the lens of your phone camera before snapping pics folks; that's my lesson from today. Regardless here's a quirky little crumpet from the days when Japanese cars looked truly foreign:

This is a 1981 Toyota Corolla Tercel SR-5 in Silver Metallic. The Tercel was introduced the year before but wasn't allowed to use its own name. As a result it masqueraded as one of many Corollas that populated the Toyota showrooms in '81. In fact this "Corolla" didn't have much in common except that they shared the same manufacturer. For example this is the first front wheel drive Toyota while every other Corolla continued to be rear wheel drive!

The antenna placement is a frugal solution to being carwash-proof without the cost of a retractable or hiding it in the glass of the windshield. I'd forgotten about the antenna being mounted on the windshield pillar until now, but I remember this on old Datsuns as well.
SR-5 was a trim level/option package for the Corolla Tercel. Reports vary but some sources insist that the 5 speed manual came with the SR-5. I always thought it referred to the 3 door hatchback models. Regardless it's somewhat charming to half decals so huge that it looks like this car is wearing its parents clothes.

What up city veteran?
You used to see a lot of this in NYC. People would come out to find their door or trunk lock destroyed as a result of a break in and would replace the lock with this armored bit of overkill. This is a particularly quick and dirty job as the back plate encroaches into the indentation meant for your hand! Combine that with 3 different styles of rivet and you know this thing has seen some action.

Well there's no mistaking what this car is since the owner elected to put an 81COROLLA SR5 decal in the windshield.

Black rubber bumpers and black trim around the windows make for a clean, chrome-less look. Too bad about that one dead eye.

The range of Corollas in this year was staggering: 2 and 4 door sedans, a station wagon, sporty 2 door hardtop coupe, and a 3 door liftback. The Corolla was so popular that it became the best selling car the world over. This is the reason they piggybacked the Tercel onto the Corolla for the first 3 years it was around.

The front of this ride is the same as all other body styles for '81.

I like how awkward this frumpy little body style is. The handling is adequate as the wheels are pretty far out towards the corners of the car. The current Mini Cooper isn't too different.

Military stickers plaster the windows on this car so I didn't lean in for an interior pic. You rarely see U.S. military stickers on a foreign car which was mildly intriguing.

These odd taillights are 1980-1982 Tercel liftback specific which makes them annoyingly difficult to replace. The same can be said for that rear window with its quirky shape.

Poor car had an identity crisis from the beginning!
The Tercel will become a stand alone model in 1983 with a modernizing facelift.

The front wheel drive setup keeps this from being a cult car as the drifting crowd has no use for them. The 1.5 liter inline 4 cylinder engine sat above the transmission, connected by a differential. Gas mileage was excellent, especially with the 5 speed manual.

Well there we have it; a truly gawky car in its awkward phase roosting on a Brooklyn street at age 36. Given half the chance these cars will dissolve into rust like a sugar cube dropped in boiling water so it is remarkable that this exists.
Spending my teenage summers up in Northern California this was the sort of car that my friends would have as their first. I've been in these old Toyotas on dirt mountain roads, up and down the coast, and even into the desert, and they never failed to keep on trucking. The last car I owned was an '83 Corolla wagon so you know I have a soft spot for this little punk.

What's the opposite of a Christmas miracle?

R BODY BURGUNDY BRICK

Take a good look at this slab of iron weighing down all of America. This is the purple torpedo that sank the Chrysler ship. The fact that they built what is basically a car from the 1950s for the cusp of the '70s and '80s decades makes it fitting that this car has its eyes closed. This is 3,800 lbs of sadness.

This is a 1981 Chrysler New Yorker in what might be Ginger red. This was the wrong car at the wrong time and despite all my seemingly over the top superlatives it really did bring mighty Chrysler to its knees. The custom plate is awesome though!

It was the 1970s and the gas crisis was still fresh in everyones mind. Quirky little Japanese cars were selling better than ever with their owners boasting of 35 miles per gallon from engines that ran so clean they didn't need catalytic converters. Ford downsized across the board, and so did GM. Chrysler did a little bit but still trotted out an old-school huge American dinosaur that they bragged was "traditional sized". The public shrugged and looked the other way.

Under that long hood resides a 318 V8 good for 130 horsepower. If you had the time you could supposedly coax this barge up to 100mph. Driving like that would probably hurt your 17mpg factory rating however. A review from the era found that with the air conditioning on they only got 12.8mpg. It went on to say that the air conditioning of their new test car stopped working during the review, as did the brake lights. In addition the digital clock went out and a map light turned on every time the brake pedal was pressed! Build quality was horrific with Chrysler actually planning on something like 1,700 defects per 100 cars sold. Chrysler, what!?

The tact here was lazy luxury steeped in patriotism. The 1981 was the third and final year of this generation New Yorker and only 6,548 were built. The following year there was a redesign which sold over 50,000 units. 

To see this utterly forgotten automotive footnote is mint condition 2 days before Christmas in Brooklyn is amazing. There can't be many left as there were few to begin with. The New Yorker had 2 siblings this year; the Newport and St. Regis. The lowest end of the spectrum was the Newport with its exposed headlights. The St. Regis had one of the weirdest details ever put on a car: translucent headlight covers that opened when you turned them on. This meant that when the lights were off they were behind milky glass but still visible. Why, Chrysler? What were you maniacs thinking?

Alright here is the next evolution of the malaise-era opera window: a vinyl roof so powerful that it ignores the fact that the door is there and creeps over it like moss. Chrysler claimed that these cars were "pillared hardtops" which makes as much sense as dry water. This car has extra pillars as opposed to none so how is this a hardtop? Obviously there were no adults at Chrysler in the late '70s or some of these basic questions might've been asked. Then again we've all known someone who keeps on a deliberate path of doom somehow unable to see it. From now on we'll call those people the R Bodies.

From this angle it looks like any old car on the city streets. With its '70s dimensions it's almost stately.

Get a little closer and the strangeness continues. I love full width taillights. Some Mopars of the early '70s had them, as well as Buicks from the '60s. This is more of a collection of red rectangles kind of stacked on each other. I guess the center portion comes out to accommodate the square trunk bulge that's not quite a Continental kit. Why, Chrysler? 

Some huge cars pull it off. I LOVE the enormous cars of the '60s and '70s but somehow this looks like the trunk will break off under its own largess. Remember that this is a downsized version of the pre-'79 New Yorkers.

That baleen grill makes this thing look like a blind whale looking to feed. The fancy stand-up hood ornament once had a crystal insert but this one seems to be missing.

Look I know I bagged on this car relentlessly but I was legit astonished to see one in the wild. Chrysler took on so much water from these R Body rides the Lee Iacocca was brought in after being fired by Ford to save the company. He immediately brokered a guaranteed loan deal with Congress and green lighted both the K-car and minivan. His plan was an unparalleled success, righting the Chrysler ship and creating an entire automotive category in the process. Amidst all this heroism these forlorn beasts marched off the line to uncertain futures. Good luck enforcing from the velour throne of your R-Body ride, Sir!

Fiat by Bertone by way of Oregon

LITTLE ITALIAN WEDGE IN THE EAST VILLAGE

I was leaving a huge industry wine tasting filled with drunk wanna-be alpha males when I found this little wedge waiting for me:

Bellissimo! This is a Fiat X1/9 by Bertone in Gold/Oro Metallic. These cars are so tiny and entertaining but you just don't see them any more.
*There is no reason for the following fun fact but in Westchester County only (and maybe a bit of southern Putnam County) NY a submarine sandwich is called a wedge. You're welcome. Rhode Island calls milkshakes cabinets too so who knows?

This one is in remarkable shape considering that the crumpled license plate indicates that it is indeed parked on city streets often. It would take nothing for a careless driver to destroy this ride while backing into a spot in front of it.

Look at this thing! The X1/9 was designed by Bertone and then manufactured by Fiat from '72 to '82. From 1982 through 1989 they continued to be built and imported to the States by Bertone. In 17 years the car barely changed its looks.

Much like the Porsche 914 this is a mid engine targa sports car meaning that the 4 cylinder engine is located between the rear wheel and the passenger seats. This setup makes for near-perfect front to rear weight balancing and as a result the handling is legendary.

These side intakes are basically the grills for the engine within.

This thing is absolutely tiny! When you walk up to an X1/9 the roof comes up to your waist. You need to take a deep breath and climb way down into it to drive. Think "steering wheel between your knees" small.

With such a delicate little car those federally mandated safety bumpers really look out of place.

Nothing says "1981" like the font in five speed.

That's the gas cap all the way up against the rear window. Refueling without spilling any on the engine cover or the paint is a neat trick.

That black roof panel comes off and stores perfectly under the front trunk (leaving space underneath for storage). This targa body style isn't terribly common and is mostly seen on imports. The 1984 Corvette actually offered a targa top but for the most part we had T-Tops in the States.

Here we can see the funky Bertone logo on that sale panel emblem. Those wheels are factory originals from '81.

This car is supremely parkable due to its scale. The gas mileage was better than most cars on the market when it was new.

Well that's where we'll leave this little wedge. I've only known one person to own one of these and they destroyed it before even driving it once by doing a valve job 100% wrong and messing everything up inside by turning the key. Occasionally they would be seen in driveways or in the parking lot of a doctors office or something but they are just about extinct in the Northeast.
Curiously enough when I started googling details about X1/9s I encountered this exact car that someone had taken pictures of parked in its native Oregon. Those pics are from 5 years ago and there is one difference; the word Fiat can be seen in the front fender portion of the black side stripe. Why they elected to get rid of that we'll never know.