(first posted 1/13/2016) In the late 1960s, the VW Beetle was the 800-pound gorilla in the sub-$2,000 economy car segment. Toyota had achieved some good success in the segment starting in 1966 with the introduction of the Corona, though the company’s sales were still miniscule compared to the giant from Wolfsburg. But with U.S. Baby Boomers coming of age in increasing numbers and seeking their first cars, Toyota wanted a bigger piece of the pie, and decided to expand their lineup with another car even more specifically tailored for the budget-minded first time buyer. So for 1968, the Toyota Corolla arrived on our shores as yet another alternative to the Bug. How would it fare when the Buff Books took it for a spin?
In the July 1968 issue, Motor Trend took a quick look at the Corolla, noting right out of the gate that its intended target was the potential Beetle buyer.
Motor Trend chided the Corolla for its difficult cold starts and relative lack of performance, they did note that Toyota had managed to squeeze a respectable amount of power from such a tiny engine. In other areas, the Corolla fared better with Motor Trend’s editors, who liked the car’s styling, general handling and relative comfort for the car’s size. In a swipe at VW, Motor Trend also noted that the Corolla had a very effective heater…
Road Test was even more direct in pitting the Corolla against the Beetle: their review of the new Toyota in July 1968 was a comparison test.
Road Test gave a great summary of the market conditions leading to the surge in sales for economy imports, noting that Detroit products were losing their appeal in the surging segment due to increasing size and decreasing build quality. Road Test also noted that due to VW’s huge popularity, what had once been a quirky and unique product was now ubiquitous. Without the allure of being seen “driving something different,” some buyers were starting to look beyond VW for the next big thing.
Right off the bat, the Corolla offered some obvious advantages compared to the Beetle. It undercut the Bug on price (not easy to do), and a “loaded” Corolla (with radio) was $1,714 ($11,689 adjusted), which was right where the Beetle started before options.
The Corolla’s other advantage was design. Though smaller on the outside, the Corolla’s more contemporary shape allowed it to be roomier and more comfortable inside. While Disney’s 1968 hit children’s movie Herbie The Love Bug immortalized the Beetle’s looks as “cute,” undoubtedly many buyers in 1968 would likely have found the Corolla’s clean modern design far more attractive.
Beating the Bug in handling and performance was actually not much of an accomplishment, as the VW was never praised in either area. However, the fact that the Corolla outperformed the Beetle using a smaller 65.8 cubic inch engine (just 1.1 liters!) compared to VW’s 91.1 cubic inches (1.5L), was pretty impressive. No radical technology was used to accomplish that feat either—the Corolla’s engine was a very basic OHV inline 4-cylinder, it’s most dramatic feature being the 20-degree tilt designed to facilitate servicing. Well-chosen gear ratios and lighter weight also gave the Corolla an advantage. Getting that power to the ground was also easier in the Corolla, since its 4-speed manual had a more conventional shift pattern than VW’s.
For day-to-day livability the Toyota was tops. The Beetle had too many issues inside, with an odd seating position for the driver, raucous cabin, and of course, the classic bugaboo of a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine: terrible heater performance.
VW had built a great reputation for product quality and durability. It was arguably the brand’s biggest strength, and no other small car maker had been able to even come close, especially for the price. The Corolla changed all that, as it was the equal to VW when it came to craftsmanship, finish and overall build quality. Suddenly, consumers seeking the highest quality car for the lowest price possible had a new and much more user-friendly choice.
As it did with the Corona, Toyota quickly added models to expand the Corolla’s appeal. First up, with an eye on the “youth market,” was a semi-fastback model with a lower roofline and sleeker backlight. To separate it from the “plain” Corolla and potentially justify its $130 ($887 adjusted) higher price tag, the new coupe was called the Corolla Sprinter.
Car and Driver was finally coming around to the notion that perhaps the Japanese were onto something, so they deigned to test the new Sprinter.
C&D couldn’t resist poking fun at the Corolla’s Lilliputian size with their rather comical shot leading into the article. But the editors had to admit that the Corolla Sprinter made the most of its small size, and that its lightness and trim dimensions contributed to sprightly handling and excellent maneuverability.
When describing the Corolla’s engine, Car and Driver referred to it as “fashionable” meaning it was thoroughly up-to-date with plentiful aluminum components like the cylinder head and intake manifold, along with a traditional iron block. It wasn’t revolutionary, but it worked well, and was certainly as modern as any engine in the market for anywhere near the Corolla Sprinter’s low price point.
C&D picked on the shifting feel and the uptake of the clutch. They were also critical of the Corolla’s drum brakes, which were adequate at best—not much fade, but stopping distances that were longer than they should have been, especially for such a lightweight car.
Edgy Car and Driver was just brimming with attitude, as this picture of the groovy hipster will attest. Oh yeah, the Corolla Sprinter was in the shot too. Don Draper surely would have hired this Art Director if he could have…
Car and Driver correctly acknowledged that even though it sported a fastback roofline, the Corolla Sprinter couldn’t be called a sports car. Take that, Barracuda! But as a fashion statement, assuming you didn’t need the extra headroom, C&D felt that the Corolla Sprinter offered a nice package and was a good buy.
Having covered the price conscious fashion shopper with the Corolla Sprinter, and the pragmatic bargain hunter with the regular Corolla 2-door, Toyota also figured that a more utilitarian Corolla could be useful too. Dutifully, they also brought over the Corolla 2-door wagon.
Road Test took the opportunity to drive the newest Corolla body style, and interestingly, they looked at it from a woman’s perspective, taking into account how well the Corolla wagon could serve a small family going about its daily routine.
Just as the regular Corolla was smaller than a Beetle, so too was the Corolla Wagon when compared to the VW Squareback. But, given its conventional front-engine layout, the Corolla wagon offered handling characteristics that would be very familiar to U.S. buyers.
Inside, the Corolla wagon excelled when it came to everyday livability. The cargo area was praised for its roominess and easy access. The interior finish, replete with thoughtful features and excellent craftsmanship, was pleasing as well. Just like Car and Driver’s editors, the Road Test writers felt that the Corolla’s instrument panel resembled a mini-Camaro’s—pretty nice compliment for a small economy car!
While I am unable to locate specific U.S. sales breakdowns for the Corolla, there’s little doubt the newest, smallest Toyota was very popular. During the three years that the first generation Corolla was sold in the U.S., sales jumped from 71,463 in 1968 to 208,315 for 1970. There’s little doubt, however, that a nice chunk of that 300% increase was due to the success of the new Corolla.
Granted, VW sales during this period stayed strong as well—averaging around 580,000 units per year during that same 1968 through 1970 time period, but there was no growth. Toyota had seemingly tapped a new market, and it wouldn’t be long before the world order in economy imports would shift dramatically. Within ten years, the tables would be turned, and for 1980 Toyota would sell 582,204 units in the U.S., while VW eked out a mere 90,952 sales.
The success continues even today. The Corolla ranks as the 5th best selling vehicle in the U.S. for 2015, car or truck. In terms of car sales, the Corolla only trails its big sister the Camry (#4). In fact, if the top selling list was restricted to just passenger cars, then Toyota would hold the #1 and #2 best selling positions in America. Plus, the Corolla has also gone down in history as the world’s best selling car of all time, placing ahead of the Beetle, which is now ranked #4. Bug killer indeed!
Those first two articles are a particularly interesting read. They take us into a time capsule, that tipping point where the VW was starting to lose its game.
As you point out, VW had succeeded with a mix of low price and high quality, with a dealer network that was probably just as important. Those factors allowed its ancient design so soldier on for many years past its freshness date.
With the Corolla, there was little reason to make the kinds of compromises that VW demanded of the buyer in order to get a well-built car at a minimum price. VW has never really recovered.
In Arthur Hailey’s novel “Wheels,” he has Detroit engineers comparing the well-built VW with “string & baling wire” Japanese cars. Here was another Westerner who underestimated Japan.
Since the Opel Kadett was also aimed at the Beetle, it would be interesting to find a comparison of it with the Corolla as well, being of closer layout.
The Corolla’s slanted engine reminds me of early 4-cyl Camrys, which were also this way & had the oil filter in front, as opposed to Honda who always has them facing the firewall.?
I thought the toolkit was a luxury touch unique to Lexus, but Toyota used to have that in their most basic model.
Cars from Italy, like Ferrari and Alfa Romeo had tool kits going as far back as the 50’s and earlier… Way before Lexus was even a gleem in Toyota’s eye in 1988/89.
Only the assembly quality of the Beetle arrived out here dealers were rare cars and parts were and are expensive for the same money as a VW you could buy a vastly better car from another maker.
Very interesting articles in hindsight, will have to read in more detail later.
One of my uncles bought one of these early Corollas new for his first car, it turned out to be better than his sisters’ new cars (Isuzu Bellet and VW Beetle) and he has bought new Toyotas for life.
I don’t remember his 1st Corolla but I remember the 2nd one, which was a 1973. I got a few rides in that one for family vacations and liked it at lot.
In the mid seventies I was driving a 65 Tempest. I had a job delivering food. I was desperately looking for an economy car to replace the clapped out Tempest, and had a bad case of lust for a VW, either a beetle or a Squareback. I liked the solid simplicity of the VW, and I wasn’t too concerned about looks. Eventually I did find a 68 beetle (with hang on AC!) and it served me reasonably well although I had left the delivery job by then.
While delivering food, a neighboring pizza place had an early first generation Corolla and that thing was hideous despite having only about 50K on the odometer. It was running on three cylinders and looked like it was completely falling apart. That, and a few others that I knew including my high school auto shop teacher who had some major issues with his 72 Corona, kept my interest in Toyota to a minimum, though I would have been really happy with a Datsun 510 wagon.
Another thing that kept my interest low was that the early Toyotas just looked SO Japanese, which just didn’t do it for me. In fact, the first Toyota to interest me was the very attractive 78-81 Celica notchback, an itch that never got scratched.
Fast forward to 2002, and I bought my first Toyota, a Sequoia Limited. It was a great car, but changing needs caused me to sell it in 06 and buy an Avalon Limited, which, though unstylish, was a perfect family car and the most reliable car that I have ever had. We will soon be selling it to buy a Highlander. I have really become quite the fan of Toyota.
I think that your story is not uncommon. Somehow, I have avoided ever owning a Toyota. I got to do an apples to apples comparison with a rental 90 or 91 Camry that I had for a couple of weeks at the same time we had an 88 Accord. There was not a thing wrong with the Camry, but I so much preferred almost everything about the Accord. I guess I became a Honda guy.
Toyotas are all around me in my extended family and I have driven some of them. I have nothing against them, and maybe some time I will get one. But when I do, it will be a sign that I have finally become a grown-up. 🙂
I recall reading that a Toyota Corolla was one of the cars “auditioned” for the film that eventually became The Love Bug (I think a Volvo and MG were also in the roster), but the studio was too taken with the cuteness of the Volkswagen (though in my experience it’s the Volvo that tends to form the strongest emotional bond with the owner—well, vice-versa).
Ironically, the Japanese seem much more into “cuteness” than Germans, unless you’re talking about Hummel figures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawaii
I cannot imagine Ferdinand Porsche thinking of the Kdf-Wagen as “niedlich.”
The “cute” aspect of the Beetle didn’t really properly materialize until the 60s. In the 50s, many thought it just looked old-fashioned, or ugly. But the VW’s ad campaign and changing tastes soon turned it into cute.
So that’s an example of Edward Bernays’s contention (ca. 1928) that public taste can be shaped & manipulated by propaganda. He was perhaps the 1st PR consultant; another Austrian who changed the 20th century.
The first Japanese car I ever rode in was a 68 Corolla owned by a university student. It was impressive and quite a contrast to my father’s 62 Mercury Comet. The Corolla was certainly well thought out for the North American market.
I know, I know, the Corolla was a better car, and I own a Matrix now. But looking at the photos of the comparison test, I want that Beetle! Beetle fever still lives deep within me – it had a charm all of its own. I miss it.
An ex GF had a 68 Corolla with a 4k and 5speed webber carb headers a lumpy cam and ported head it went really well somebody in its past had stiffened all the suspension and fitted later discs up front it was a lot of fun to drive it too fast on gravel roads, but even a standard Corolla is a much better car than a VW ever was, Beetles were on level terms with some other post war 4 cylinder cars like sidevalve Morrises, Austins and Hillmans but by the time the1950s rolled around the Beetle was left floundering in their wake, once the mainstream 4 cylinder car makers went to OHV the Beetle had little to offer.
Funny that Road Test included a picture of the DAF 44 to see what the interior measurements were about!
I noticed that too. I suppose in the US it was just a generic line drawing of a car, since only travelers to the Netherlands were likely to be familiar with them.
Abe Lincoln scrunched up in the Sprinter is a great picture. I remember comparing the steel thickness and heft of the bodies comparing these early Corollas to the ’66 Beetle that would become my first car in ’72. The Beetle felt like a bank vault compared to the tinny and thin skinned Toyota. The longer term durability factor was still in VW’s favor.
I still would have gone with VW during these years, but Toyota was improving and would soon be a better car.
Interesting how the Road test article compared the trunk size of the VW and Corolla without mentioning the storage well behind the VW’s back seat which could be folded down as well.
And mentioned the VW’s “erratic braking” which is news to me. The brakes worked well in theses cars, and the rear weight bias was a good thing to have to balance hard stops. And VW had “brake judder”. Really? Did every VW have out of round brake drums?
Road Test say’s the Corolla is rock steady in cross winds, and Car and Driver says it’s just as bad in crosswinds as the VW. And the ’68 VW’s seats with built in whiplash reducing head rests were inferior to the no headrest Corolla because they reduced rear vision.
The Toyota did have the advantage of a water cooled engine and the much better heater/defroster. But in the snow or on muddy roads the VW will go where the Corolla will stop with a spinning rear wheel.
Although crash safety was not great in the Beetle, I was in 2 hard driver side T bone accidents in Beetles and walked away with bruises. The steel was soft and paper thin on the lighter than Beetle Corolla, and they were very fragile in collisions. And in salt states Japanese cars of the era quickly dissolved. And in So Cal the seats and dashes were not up to the heat and were not durable as well.
It wouldn’t be long before the outdated VW would be out classed by Toyota, and the writing was already on the wall. But the Corolla was not quite there yet.
These old road tests are a great read, really appreciate them and keep ’em coming.
67 & earlier VW had the wide 5-lug wheel bolt pattern & the brake drums could & were pulled out-of-round by improper torquing. HEEEEERE’S JOHNNY AIRWRENCH [WHIRRRRR!],
Tire shop did that to my ’66 Beetle. I was back in 5 minutes asking if they hand tightened the lugs to factory specs. The VW dealer always hand tightened with a torque wrench. At least they paid to get the drums turned and learned what not to do to a 5 bolt pattern VW.
I am no fan of the Beetle. I owned one once and I know all their shortcomings. But I also remember what a late 60s to early 70s vintage japanese car was like. They weren’t bad when new and the engines were good but that’s about all you can say good about them. They just disintegrated. Interiors too. I always wondered what ever became of the engines of all those thousands and thousands of cars that just disintegrated. There must’ve been a severe shortage of decent used cars to put all those still-running used engines into.
Although I’ve been a Bug fanboy from afar (I get nauseated riding in them, not sure why), it wasn’t until the Gen 3 Corolla that I though Toyota was finally matching VW in terms of workmanship and durability. Gen 1 & 2 Corollas just felt tinny to me….
I had a used ’63 Beetle and it was a pure joy till it was totaled in an accident. I took what little money from the accident and got a used ’69 beetle and it was a POS. It sucked up all of my high school graduation money just to keep it moving.
I could see that the Beetle was out dated, so I moved to a used ’75 Corolla and had “no” problems except finding a mechanic who would do minor maintenance (tune-up, brake job, etc). At that time, mechanics were still not familiar with Japanese cars and were reluctant to take them in for repairs. After 90k miles, I ended up selling it for more that I paid for it because the general public was starting to appreciate Japanese quality.
I appreciate that VW was the opening salvo in the acceptance of foreign cars, but VW failed to capitalize on its lead and Toyota and “Datsun” ate their lunch. To this day, I would never consider a VW/Audi product.
I o had a 70 sprinter 1200 it said on the fender,in the early 80’s I don’t remember much
good about it but nothing else from 1970 was much better
The original Corolla reminds me of the Datsun 1200 I had. It also had that hand choke, but first couple min. driving, the engine would run rough when cold. I think power was about the same. Light weight and small tires helped get these cars going good. But these cars never matched the traction of the VW bug in snow , which I also had. Being an air cooled engine, there’s no antifreeze to worry about. These are advantages of the bug the magazine testers neglected.
Having ridden in and driven VW’s 15 years before I bought my ’69 Corolla in 1977 the Corolla is a better car. The one I bought was a rebuilt wreck that had been repaired by an autobody teacher at the local community college. It exhibited non of the negative characteristics of a rebuilt wrecked car. I can only wonder what it would have been like new. It was a great little car that allowed me to get places that no other car to go. One time a friend of mine needed a jump for his ’66 Chevrolet Van. It was parked on the street with cars in front and back on a very busy street. No problem I just found the nearest driveway that crossed the sidewalk and drove down the sidewalk to his van and gave him a jump start. It was later useful for finding a parking space in my front yard when i came home from working swing swift and all my roommates partying friends had my driveway full up. I wish I had never sold it. It was probably the most dependable car I have ever owned but it was the only Toyota I ever owned.
SUNDAY!…SUNDAY!…SUUUUNNNNNDAAAAY! We’ll put the “international” in Orange County International Raceway with the 1968 championship heats in the NHRA’s new Rollerskate Stocker Class……featuring the the challenger, the 60-horsepower 85 mile per hour screamer all the way from Nagoya, Japan…the Toyota Corolla “Color Me Sayonara”….
…versus the the defending champion and dragster fan favorite, the air-cooled, 53-horsepower juggernaut from Wolfsburg, Germany designed by Herr Porsche himself….the one and only “BEEEEEATLEMAAAAANIIIIIAAAAAA!”
It’s championship drag racing action at its slowest! Gates open at noon, the squirrel cages spin at 2 pm! Good seats are going fast! BE THERE!
Just wanted to say thank you for a great article!
I first saw one of these Corollas when I was a kid in 1970 – we went to visit a friend of my mom’s who proudly showed us her new “little Japanese car”. They became a pretty common sight here in Ontario though our salty roads weren’t kind to the first ones (or most cars, for that matter). Years later they’re still a common sight, and there’s lots of older Corollas still on the road thanks to better rust protection. I’ve driven many as rentals, and every generation continues to improve on the formula while still delivering the same basic goodness of the first Corolla. I really like the newest generation, and it’s cool to see one parked next to the original. Great article – I enjoyed reading the original reviews as well.
In the past five years, I’ve sort-of owned both of these cars… a 1974 Corolla (instead of a ’68) and a ’71 Super Beetle (instead of a ’68 Bug). I have to say that the ’74 was a better car overall, but the Beetle was slightly more fun to drive. And it turns more heads!
Wow. 17 to almost 22 seconds zero-to-sixty. The Vega was a whole lot quicker than that, with more substantial body work, and in just a few years later, which probably helps explain one part of the big sales numbers on the Vega. The Chevy rusted just as quickly, but had much more metal to chew through.
The early Mazda rotaries went to 60 in between 10 and 11 seconds, which was likely why so many people plunked down hard-earned cash for an unproven engine in a little tin can of a car. They were a rocket ship, relatively. It’s probably also why so many people of a certain age recall them as world-beatingly fast cars. Their peer group (Japanese four-cylinder four-seaters) was just awfully underpowered, that’s all.
There were so many magazine photos of cars being wrung out at OCIR, back in the day. Long gone now, but the place was within sight of the location of Mazda’s Irvine headquarters complex today.
The 90 horsepower, 3 speed manual 1971 Vega took 16.5 seconds to hit 60 mph in R&T’s 11/70 test. It also returned 20.5 mpg and cost $2,326 as tested, with a stripped out interior that made a Corolla look luxurious. They also tested a 110 hp, 4-speed Vega that accelerated to 60 mph in 14.2 seconds, but it returned 18.6 mpg and cost $2,908 while still missing some desirable options.
The Vega’s strong sales figures were probably down to buyers’ faith in GM, thousands of Cheverolet dealers, and its excellent styling. They were said to handle well, but you had to put up with the rough engine and an interior that needed many hundreds of dollars in options to look finished.
Has anyone noticed that the line drawing on page 34 of the Road Test article is not of a Corolla, but a DAF?
I currently have a similar Corolla! Mine is a 1973 coupe SR with a 1.2 under the hood with a pair of 2 barrel carburators on top of it, likely not an option in the states. I have yet to unleash it’s mighty 77 hp on the road, I’ll have to sort the brakes and ignition sometime.
That drag race in the top photo is finally nearing completion. The Corolla is about to edge out a win.
Groovy hipster shaved a path through his beard and made it into separate beard and sideburns!
Wow, that generation’s gonna save this planet.
Volkswagens rusted everywhere that I’ve ever lived. Corollas rusted too, but they weren’t quite as common until the mid ’70s, and their numbers never seemed to decline quite as fast as VWs did. Sure, there are still a few Bugs in the hands of hobbyists, but their population was once immense. When I was starting grade school, an older cousin of mine would have three or four rusted out Beetles at a time that he would strip the bodies from to make the early ’70s equivalents of today’s side-by-side power toys. He’d usually have to reinforce the rusted-out chassis/floor pans too. I remember him stripping them down and just finding more and more rust.
Were there still a few Beetles and Karmann Ghias being used by high school students in the ’80s? Sure, but there were also a few similarly aged Japanese cars, and a decade earlier there had been Beetles everywhere accompanied by…a few similarly aged Japanese cars. I’d say Beetles stayed on the road in decent numbers longer than Vegas did, but they didn’t survive long-term at the same rate as Valiants or first-generation Mustangs.
This was not only a bug killer and its children children becomes a giant killer. It defeated a list of then established car manufacturers.
By looking the data, Datsun 510 performance is really impressive, but now Datsun (Nissan) is half death like a wall flower looking for a dancing partner.
Two things.
1. Granted the Corolla was an all around better car than the VW. However, how many Corollas of that era do you still see on the roads, or off the roads, versus the Beetle? Me? None.
2. In the article about the Corolla wagon from a woman’s POV. It would seem that the second page pictures are out of sync with the rest of the story. Are we talking about an inexpensive reliable wagon to do our chores with or are we really wanting a Jeep? That juxtaposition caught my eye.
3. How many cars, not just economy cars, include touch up paint and a tool kit nowadays?
I’m a VW guy so I know I have a bias, let me say that first off. The Beetle has a cult status like no other car really. You know it’s downsides and you still love it. If you get it, you get it. When a Beetle was used up, it was more likely to be rebuilt, customized in some way, etc whereas the Corolla was just an appliance and was thrown away once it was used up. On paper and in practice the Corolla was the better car but passions don’t care about sensible things.
I don’t want to seem like I’m hating on old Japanese cars because I think they are really cool too. My non-VW vehicle in my stable is a ’79 Datsun pickup
One of the options on the Corolla Sprinter was anti-freeze ($4.00).
I could see you avoiding it in southern California, but necessary for the rest of the US.
Anti-freeze was optional on the BMW 2002 as well, and who knows how many other imports. It wasn’t available at any price on the Beetle though.
I drove a Valiant, my college buddy drove a 1969 Corolla. His dad bought it new and it was given everything a beloved car ever gotten. So, by the time he inherited it, it was a sweet awesome car. The only thing worn out was the bottom cushion of the driver’s seat. The rest of the car was showroom.
This was really the first car I ever had experience with that showed quite clearly the advantages of design Toyota put into it. We took that car up the Rockies, filled with our ginormous back packs propped up like adult riders in the back seat, and nothing stopped us. You really couldn’t ask for a better car.
Tiny on the outside, BIG on the inside, this Corolla even went over Rollins Pass before it was shut down to Jeep traffic. This Corolla was a rolling Swiss Army Knife for our weekend backpacking trips. It spoiled us by doing everything asked of it. By about 1981 it was worn out.
A terrific car that made every other subcompact car look primitive and backwards. It wasn’t until I bought a 1988 Ford Festiva LX that I found a similar car as this one.
My father, in 1968, went another way.
He had a ’59 Beetle which had been totalled by a neighborhood teen who hit it parked in front of our house, so he had to buy something. He could have gotten a beetle, but I think what influenced him was in 1967 he started making trips to France, on business, and became a little enamored with the country. He had been in Germany in early 50’s in the army, and was assigned some early beetles to drive, so he’d been used to them by the time he got his ’59.
What he ended up getting was a new ’68 Renault R10. Well, maybe it was a bit of a mistake, but we were living up in Vermont at the time, and having engine over drive wheels improved traction, which was important most of the year. The Renault had 4 doors, though it was his 2nd car and we seldom used it for family duty, it was easier to get in/out than the beetle. It also had 4 wheel disc brakes, and Michelin radials.
Later I had a Datsun 710, which was a light RWD car, all the way through undergraduate studies, only to bite a cable guardrail after I hit black ice 41 years ago…lightweight RWD car wasn’t too good for traction. My father had moved on, had a 1976 Subaru DL (FWD) at that time, but he was never to own a Toyota (my 2 youngest sisters have owned 4 Nissan 200/240 SX models, and one owned a Toyota Tercel, but otherwise my family has never gotten around to buying many Toyotas.