California and Japan join forces to show off again

LATIN FOR "CROWN"; THE WREATH AROUND THE SUN

I was visiting my mother at the Chico, California library where she works when this lovely little ray of sunshine entered the parking lot:

This is a 1979 Toyota Corona T130 Station Wagon in Yellow. We here on the East Coast can just stand back in awe of how utterly rust and damage free an everyday grocery getter from 38 years ago can be in California.

This righteous grill symbol is a C for Corona with some sort of star power emanating from the center. This is also the easiest way to discern the vintage; the year before had round headlights while the year after this one had a chrome horizontal bar running the width of the grill. Take a second to admire that factory pinstripe on the hood in brown!

This Corona is proud and upright with excellent posture and grooming.
There is a fantastic song named Corona by the Minutemen that most people know as the opening theme for Jackass. I highly recommend the Minutemen documentary We Jam Econo for anyone who digs that track. Corona is also a beer. Drink extremely cold when it's hot out ONLY.

About the most damage I can see on this ride at all is that the paint looks a touch on the faded side, but really! This thing looks to be wearing its original paint so I'll go ahead and call this a flawless original survivor.

The hubcaps are correct and pretty snazzy for a late-'70s Japanese car. They look a lot like a hybrid of old Ford Falcon hubcaps in the center and '80s Econoline caps around the rim.

This year straddles the line between the rounded '70s Toyotas and the angular boxy designs of the '80s. The lines are just barely softened but it makes for a friendly car.

Get a load of that checkered 1979 Toyota upholstery! Also this seems to have a green First Aid kit in the rear, probably offered as part of an AAA membership or gift for opening a checking account decades ago. It lends a wholesomeness to the whole scene that's so earnest I can't stand it!

The Corona was one step up in size and stature from the diminutive Corolla, but they're really very similar cars. The last car I owned as of writing this post was an '83 Corolla wagon (also in yellow). If you could whittle this Corona down on all sides leaving perfectly straight lines and reduce the 4 square headlights to 2 you would have my old ride.

Somehow I have no doubt that the rear window washing fluid still works from that black dot above the center glass. There's probably an AM/FM radio in the dash ready to read you the news at a moments notice.

In the Northeast when you bought this car the fuse was lit; you'd be lucky to make it to a year before the first spec of rust made itself known. Here in Sunny California the factory quarter panel yawns at another perfect day. Every time I post a car I snapped in Cali I'm reminded of how I ought to exclusively buy cars from the West Coast and drive them back.

We'll close this out as I notice the damage on the passenger side. Looks like a whiskey dent/scrape along the doors happened in some parking lot or garage along the way.
There is nothing flashy or particularly memorable about this wagon except for the fact that it remains on the road after almost 4 decades in such solid condition. Most older Toyotas have a cult following but somehow the Corona has been ignored by most collectors. It's not small enough for the Corolla set, not sporty enough for the Celica/Supra folks, and don't have anything to offer for the truck and Land Cruiser aficionados. The running gear is just as legendarily bulletproof as the other Toyotas of the era and its scale makes it a bit more practical than the smaller rides. If I saw this with a sign in the window I would have to contact the owner and give it a test drive. You could certainly do worse for a usable everyday classic set of wheels.

F for Friday, F for Fox, and F for mad Fahrvergnügen

Fahrvergnügen

Look at this little box of fun. Doesn't it look like fun? Not really? Okay. Well this was sitting on a Red Hook street recently and I marveled at how long it had been since I'd seen one.

This is a 1990 Volkswagen Fox in (mostly) Tornado Red. Even though it was sold in North America for 8 years from 1987-1993 the Fox is an utterly forgotten car.

Two things happened in the U.S. that facilitated the Fox showing up on our streets: Yugo and Hyundai. These two interlopers came out of nowhere (Korea and Yugoslavia actually) with new cars advertised at astonishingly low prices. VW had these cheap wheels already in production in South America so they quickly brought them north to compete. The Fox was the cheapest VW of its era.

People can't resist striking poses in front of vintage European classics!
In 1990 VW had a new ad campaign centered around the word Fahrvergnügen. This is a made-up amalgamation of the German words fahren (to drive) and Vergnügen (enjoyment). The tagline was "Fahrvergnügen: It's what makes a car a Volkswagen". The campaign lasted only 2 years but this car was sold during that time. I wonder if the driver feels enjoyment every time they turn the key?

The Fox was available in 2 and 4 door sedans as well as a pretty cool 2 door wagon. The wagon was halted after 1991.

The Fox was manufactured and sold in Brazil as the VW Gol. That's right GOL like Golf without the Fun. This was no flash in the pan either. It was introduced in 1980 and production continues today.

All of the Foxes in North America had a fuel injected inline 1.8 Liter 4 cylinder engine. Despite the small engine the gas mileage was rated at 22 city and 27 highway. Not too impressive Foxy!

This interior shot is utterly useless save for one detail: the stick shift that we can see poking up from the floor. This is the one detail that guarantees at least a little Fahrvergnügen: the Fox was only available with a manual transmission. *I can't think of another car between '87 and '92 that didn't have an automatic trans as an option.
*Actually the Yugo didn't offer an auto trans until 1990 but calling that a car is a stretch!

This hardy little beast needs to be commended for existing on the city streets at almost 30 years of age. In many ways this is what VW did best; basic transportation.

Well that's where I'll leave this little lunchbox. These white noise cars come and go throughout history and tend to only get noticed once most of them have disappeared. However unlike other forgotten dogs like the Chevy Beretta the Fox was a good little car. Zero frills, cheap cost, and extremely available parts all make for a usable ride. Just don't expect to restore one as it wouldn't even be worth the cost of a paint job when complete. If you found one in museum condition I still wouldn't think it would be worth more than 3 or 4 grand.
Take a good look folks! These are marching towards extinction.

Identity Crisis!

IDENTITY CRISIS!!!
I was walking through the East Village recently when I stumbled upon an old friend. I called out my friends name but the car ignored me. It turns out that this car has had many an alias and prefers not to talk about the past. From what I can tell this little box has had 7 different names just between it's birthplace and the States!

This is a 1987 Plymouth Colt E in Sarajevo White. The name of the color at the time celebrated the city that hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. This is the same city where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in an act that lit the fuse to start WWI. Unfortunately the city was also under brutal siege by the Serbs from 1992-1996 after declaring independence from Yugoslavia and gaining UN recognition. I don't think Plymouth kept up the color name for long.

Easy there Close Talker! This car just looks like it has coffee breath.
I was confounded at first by the centerpiece of this grill and how it looks removable. Then I noticed that shiny headlight on the left compared to that old toenail on the right. My guess is that the grill was smashed to oblivion parking on the streets of lower Manhattan and the replacement is a universal one. When this car was sold new it had COLT written in the middle of the grill. In its birthplace of Japan it had a large Mitsubishi logo. The replacement knows no allegiance.

Here we see the Colt in its home environment (amidst piles of garbage).
I think this is when I admit that I love this car even though I'm relentlessly bashing on it. The front and back side windows mimic each other nicely, as do the angles of the windshield and hatch. I had a friend in high school who was nice enough to lend me her Colt of this era long before I even had my drivers license. I would take it full speed down the Saw Mill River Parkway and spend the ditched school day driving all over Manhattan feeling like a champ*. At the end of the day I would deliver the car back to her after filling the tiny tank with the few gallons I used. This is a genuinely fun car to drive hard through corners!
*Champ happens to be one of the many names this car used in the '80s.

Usually I like to walk around the whole car before peeking inside but I'm breaking tradition to show you what a romper room it is. This is just a pile of old blankets and litter with multiple cushions and supports scattered about. I can just see the passenger saying "this cushion's no good I need a different one!" and just stacking the new one on the old instead of throwing it away. Imagine just adding a new band-aid to an old one.
The manual transmission makes this a much more fun car to drive than the auto at least.
Also, is that a cookie in the dashboard for later?

Gotta love that limo tint. You're not protecting identity with that tint, more like the reputation of whichever unlucky bastard contorted themselves enough to get into that backseat.

COLT E. Is that like culty? Is this a cult car or are you actually explaining that this the ECONOMY because that's what's written all over this little runt (it does stand for Economy actually).

Now we're getting to the bottom of this basket of lies!
This car is the definition of both Captive Import and Brand Engineering. It was the '70s and '80s when American automakers were at their lowest ebb producing tired, weak dinosaurs held together with glue and tape that the idea was hatched; why not buy reliable and tiny Japanese cars, slap our American names on them, and sell them to a public still staunchly Patriotic enough that they refused to buy the same cars from Japanese dealers? It worked beautifully.
This Colt is 100% Mitsubishi Mirage. It was also known as the Dodge Colt, the Plymouth Champ, and eventually the Eagle Summit among others.

Anyone for some nostalgic '80s movie racism on this topic is encouraged to watch the 1986 groaner Gung Ho! starring Norm from Cheers, Batman, and everybodys favorite Japanese comic relief Gedde Watanabe (you know; Long Duk Dong from 16 Candles). Never mind that Mr. Watanabe is originally from Utah. This movie perfectly captures the xenophobia of the domestic reaction to captive imports. 35% of people on Rotten Tomatoes can't be wrong!

Parkability is very high on the list of why to own this little bucket. In fact it is the list.

Talk about Hyperbole!
I research automotive minutiae almost as a profession but I can't find a single hint of what this claim means anywhere online. The perks of the S.E. probably consisted of the stripes and a cup holder, maybe a radio.

I'll slowly back away from this tiny car and let it keep doing its thing on the streets of the East Village. This example has a 1.5 liter 4 cylinder good for only 68 horsepower, but parking in the most dense neighborhoods in the city is worth plenty, as is gassing up monthly or less.
I have a fondness for these super boxy '80s Japanese cars built pre airbags and powered by the smallest carburetors you've ever seen. The generation before this one had an optional transmission called the Twin Stick. It had 8 forward and 2 reverse gears due to an additional shifter for the transfer case. If I stumbled upon one of those I would be very tempted to make a foolish purchase. The last cars to offer the Twin Stick were the Tredia and Cordia; talk about forgotten cars!