(first posted 5/26/2023) When we think of this second generation Tercel (L20) the tendency is to focus on the wagon, especially the 4WD version. We’ve covered it here and a few other times too, and it has become rather iconic. But its hatchback sibling has gotten short shrift hereabouts, so it’s time to give it a bit of Eugenian love. And I can assure you, there’s plenty of love for these hereabouts, or was, as even these little cockroaches are starting to get a bit thin on the ground.
The Tercel was of course Toyota’s cheapest car, analogue to its successor, the Yaris (AKA Echo, briefly). We have given proper homage to the first generation Tercel here, which was also Toyota’s first FWD car. And unlike GM, it was hale and hearty and good for the long haul from day one. In fact, the Tercels quickly developed the rep of being as absolutely bullet-proof as it got, along with its bigger stablemate, Corolla. Ever hear of anyone complain about a Tercel? I mean in terms of reliability and durability; its comfort, accommodations, and amenities are obviously not stand outs, although perfectly competitive in its class.
All this made Tercels highly desirable as cheap used cars, as those in the know knew it was literally the cheapest way to drive. A 15 or 20 year old Tercel could still give astonishingly reliable service, and of course great mileage to boot. All this made them commodities in Eugene, as we have lots of folks who only one cars because they need to, to get to the woods or beach on the weekends, while the daily commute is done on a bicycle. A vehicle of necessity. And if you’re not buying a car for love or passion, you want it to suck as little of your under-employed dollars as possible.
That’s not to say those were the only Tercel buyers; some enthusiasts found them to be quite serviceable as a back-roads bomber-beater. Especially a basic hatchback with the stick shift; the 3-speed automatic gets a pass, for the most part, not because of reliability issues, but because the little 63 hp 1.5 L four pot just didn’t have any extra ponies to sacrifice to a torque converter, which invariably converted some of that torque into heat, or some other force other than forward acceleration.
Eugene’s economy is humming, like so much of the country; our unemployment rate is right down to some 4%, and that largely doesn’t account for the booming cannabis business. Folks who once drove these are now sporting Tacoma 4×4 crew cabs, or Subaru, or Tesla, or other bigger things. This poor little stripper Tercel is a symbol of Eugene the way it once was, but is quickly leaving behind. But given its longevity, it might well be around to be appreciated during the next downturn.
Nice, haven’t seen one in a while.
One of my coworker engineers had a couple of these, he’d purchased a nice low mileage one for almost nothing, ran it into the ground, then repeated the process. I don’t even think he ever changed oil.
I despised his lack of maintenance, being overly mechanically sympathetic myself. However in hindsight he was probably correct, as one expired from rust, and the other was crashed out by one of his kids.
A slight correction: This isn’t exactly a “stripper” Tercel of this generation. The True Stripper was the Tercel “EZ” model. (So named apparently for its “EZ” price point). In the mid 90’s I was unfortunate enough to stumble upon a 1988 model in appliance white over grey vinyl with only 60,000 miles on the clock. It had a 4 speed (not 5), dealer installed AC (that was unusable unless traveling downhill), and….well…that’s it. This car was so stripped that it didn’t even have a day/night flip switch on the rearview mirror. Fortunately (?) it developed some troubling problems with its complicated electronic carb, provoking me to sell it on after only 18 months of commuter use. Those were 18 of the most miserable months of my Garden State Parkway rambling 30’s. It was neither cute, nor sprightly, nor endearing in any remote way, I’m sorry to say. Oh….and because AC was, I believe, a dealer-installed-only option, the car didn’t have tinted glass either, meaning that day or night you were blinded by glare, and of course this only served to render the AC even less effective. Anyone getting a clue as to how much I loved that car? Seemed like a good idea on paper though.
Proof that there’s always a car for the person who’s cheap enough to make the buffalo on the nickel scream from grabbing it so tightly.
Surprised they don’t make models like that nowadays, because there’s always a few people on the Internet car boards who claim they want that kind of “simple” (they never say “cheap”) car.
Oh yeah, I forget. They really don’t want that “simple” a car, they just want the price sticker of the properly equipped model to be the same.
Well, yes and no. There are a lot of folks who say they want a basic car, simple to operate as well as operate on (for doing the self maintenance that a lot of people used to do, like oil changes, etc.), and for the most part, those folks have older, simple cars. However, they tend to be 2nd cars, or hobby cars, and not the daily driver for those people. We get older and nostalgic for the crap-cans we drove in our youth, but we also want every damned comfort and convenience item that comes on even base models any more (a/c, ps, pb, radio, power windows, day/night mirror, driver and passenger side mirrors, etc). As the Japanese proved, it is cheaper and easier to add most popular items as “standard” rather than giving many options and trying to build to suit. Thus, even base models are pretty loaded on 2017 models. Building a “stripper” model would be a false sense of economy for the manufacturer today, and dealers probably miss them more than anyone else, as they were the loss leaders for advertising ridiculously low base pricing.
There are folks who say they want plain, cheap cars, but they don’t buy new cars.
Even just tooling up for the mirror without the day/night flip would probably cost more than the incremental cost for the small proportion of cars thus equipped
There was no ‘EZ’ for this generation. That model only existed from 87-90.
I realized after the fact that my EZ was actually considered the next generation Tercel. The visible changes were minimal between the 2 series, but yes, they were considered different generations. My bad.
distant relation to the “Studebaker Scotsman” and “Chevy Chevette Scooter”.
In 1993, I drove a rented three-door Tercel hatch of this vintage from a local rent-a-wreck for a month after my CRX got stolen and I was waiting for the insurance settlement. It was a very weathered yellow color, had a stickshift, no A/C, and basically nothing else. Crude but probably unkillable. My Japanese girlfriend referred to it as a sh*tbomb.
One of the best things you can do to improve your old car’s ride is fix the drivers seat.
Or upgrade to a higher model’s seats…like we do in the older RWD Starlets, Corollas and Celicas.
I have Supra/Corolla GT-S seats in my 83 Corolla and they are so comfy…Now, if only my Corolla had the electronic plugs for the Supra seat’s electronics. 🙂
Cigarette lighter adapter and some electrical connectors would get you there. I drove a 90 Olds Ciera a few months ago that had super low miles but had been neglected enough to dissuade me from making the deal. Bad brakes, a hood that was unable to open and the driver’s side power window switch had been wired into the cigarette lighter, with wires snaking across the top of the steering wheel. They went down to 1200 for me -from an asking of 1900, but I had a bad feeling about it so No.
A neighbor across the street from me in Denver had a circa-1989 Tercel EZ in yellow. Spartan it was, it lasted a long time. Brown vinyl interior, crappy dealer installed A/C. They at least tinted the windows at some point to help the A/C be more effective. The old purple kind with the inevitable air bubbles in it on the windows. It think it ended up with like 322k by the time they finally junked it.
I always laugh when I see one of these. For what is supposed to be the pretty much unkillable car, I knew someone who ruined one within just the first few years. I worked with a young woman who got a new one. Within maybe 4 years the poor thing was blowing oil smoke out the tailpipe with fierce determination. Which was kind of funny, what with the environmental causes the driver was so adamant about.
I would imagine that with occasional oil changes the little car might have lasted someone a good long while.
I am not sorry to see cars like this disappear. These things even managed to rust in Atlanta.
My mom bought an equivalent strippo Sentra in ’86. No radio, clock, cigarette lighter, Air conditioning, day night mirror, not a single comforting feature of the car. It lasted three years before hydroplaning. A few dollars more could make the Sentra a really nice little econobox or, in the Tercel’s case, get a Corolla. This is one of those cases in which a penny saved was NOT a penny earned as the price differential to get something vastly better was not that great. You paid every mile for the misery factor in one of these cars.
If you ever wonder why mechanical heaps like the Escort consistently made the top ten bestseller lists in America despite being out of date and not very good cars, the Escort offered a lot more car for the money at the time.
My guess is that these cars, and there were a lot of miserable hair shirt penny pincher econoboxes at the time, appealed to people who really wanted a 1967 VW Beetle.
Nowadays even the bargain basement cars, I suppose the lowest would be a Versa or a GM Daewoo, comes with Air conditioning, a decent stereo, power windows and locks, keyless entry, and actual room. Cars are enormously better today than they were when this tin box rolled off the assembly line. There are a lot of cars I can see driving for 30 years, possibly a Camry, RWD Volvo, GM A/C/H/G/B body, Taurus/Sable, even an Omnirizon, but this poor soul must be doing some serious automotive penance to be subjected to this. Ed Cole’s ghost must be driving the thing for giving us the Vega engine.
I believe you mean a Chevy Spark or Sonic? There has never been a GM Daewoo, Daewoo itself hasn’t made a car in over 15 years, and the ‘brand’ only comes up when someone wants to pillory GM.
Have driven the Spark. If you like very small cars (I do) it’s a very decent ride. The Sonic is essentially considered one of the best B class cars available in the states.
Both the Spark and Sonic were designed and built by GM Korea, formerly known as GM Daewoo until 2011, and Daewoo before then. These cars were sold in S. Korea under the Daewoo brand until just a few years ago. Daewoo and its successor have come a long way, and there’s no shame in the name any more.
I rented a nearly brand new Sonic a few months ago, and agree it is a very competent car. Seem to remember this particular one was assembled in the U.S.. I could be mistaken.
US also. I didn’t mean to imply it was only built in Korea.
This 2 door hatchback body style used to be quite common in the 1980s and early 1990s (Ford Escort, Dodge Colt, Honda Civic, Geo Metro, VW Golf, Mazda GLC, etc.) but are almost extinct now. About the closest equivalent to this Tercel is the Toyota Yaris 2 door hatchback, which very few dealers have in their inventory. VW eliminated the 2-door Golf from its lineup last year.
I’d like to get some insights on how this body style came out of favor in the U.S. Is it a utility issue in which people are hauling more things and need the extra space of a 4 door, is it a cost factor in which auto makers have brought the cost to manufacture a 4 door down to the same cost to produce a 2 door, or is it because fuel prices are low enough that people can afford to buy a larger car?
In the U.S. we get the Fiesta as a 4 door sedan or 5 door hatchback while Europe gets a 3 door hatchback in addition to the other body styles.
The “new” MINI now comes as a 3 door and a 5 door hatchback, in addition to other body styles.
The Fiesta is a “drag” on Ford dealer’s inventories so my guess is that a 3 door in the U.S. has reached the point where it’s not popular enough to justify the expense. I would guess it’s the same with the Spark.
BTW, you can still buy a Fiesta with “manual” windows, it’s the “base” model. It does, however, have power door locks.
Good question, and there is no easy answer. The 2 door hatch is down to the Yaris, Mini, Fiat 500, and maybe just a couple more. I would think that most people would prefer the 2 door, but tastes have changed and 4 (or 5 door, as most 4 door hatches are called) door models are more popular. This may be due to families using smaller cars, and the back seat is more accessible with 4 doors. However, you do not see many mid or full sized cars offered with 2 doors, either. Dodge built the Charger as a sedan when they revived it, while the 70s version was coupe only. A recent discussion had younger folks saying that they thought 2 door versions ungainly, ugly, and wasteful, while the opposite would have been true had the discussion been held in 1987. As a single person with no family, I only carry passengers on rare occasions, and I prefer the single, wider door for personal use. A 4 door car has smaller doors, but more of them. If fuel costs were a factor, the low gas price would mean that the cars of choice would be large or full sized coupes, much like the personal luxury models that held court in the 60s and 70s. They don’t make those, so the only option would be an expensive coupe from Audi, MB, BMW, Aston, Jag, or Bentley. Those do sell to the country club set, but not to many others.
Are the Spark and Sonic not either made or heavily engineered by GM Daewoo/Korea? If not, I stand corrected. Somehow I had gotten the idea they were.
See my reply above to Syke’s comment.
RE: Yoshi’s comment
My take on this is the 2-door was considered sportier and marginally less dorky than a 4 door. 4 door cars were for families and a 2 door was supposed to mean you were young, versus the extra practicality of the 4 door. People didn’t keep cars as long then as they do now so this was generally targeted at a high school student/young collegiate or older cheapskate with the idea that once young college kid graduated and got his/her first real job, he/she would trade it in on something larger and plushier more suited to family duty. Nowadays young college kids are likely to hold on to that 10 year old sedan and then eventually get their own CUV once the family and baby seat duty hits.
FYI the link in the first paragraph connects to Dodge LaFemme
I have to ask, but is the Club really necessary?
Really, I’d be like leaving the key in the ignition with this one. Even my 92 Subaru Justy wasn’t as bad an automotive hairshirt.
Like escaping the bear, you don’t have to make it theft-proof, just harder to steal than the next car.
I had a 96 Tercel for a few years , and it was bullet proof !! I made a trip every year for 10 years from Oregon to the Midwest and back without any major problems. One trip , a belt needed to be replaced and that’s it. Very economical, 42 mpg hwy. I now own the most modern version, a 2014 Toyota Yaris. Nice little car, and so far just as reliable.
Buddy of mine bought one just like this in about 1991 when he finally retired his beloved 1977 Buick LeSabre two-door. Man, talk about a major shift in motoring style. Anyway, the Tercel had been neglected so he set about doing a complete overhaul. I helped him redo the rear brakes. When he was done it was a nice-running, reliable automotive appliance. He and I both share a frugal streak and so I was a tiny bit jealous.
Shortly after I bought my Saturn a couple months ago I saw a last generation one of these at a dealership that normally doesn’t put older cars on their lot. Thought next time I was by I would stop and enquire.
When I did a few days later it was gone. The dealer said it was gone by the second day after a bidding war! He had just stuck it out there due to it’s low mileage (about 60,000 miles) and good condition for a 1999.
I guess a lot of people still have high regard for them.
I owned an ’83 5 door hatchback in the same color. It had a 5- speed and a sunroof . Never had a major problem in the 3 years I owned it. It was one of the most flexible vehicles you could own at the time. I was stupid to trade it in on a 86 Dodge Colt.
I had an 84 Dodge Colt , which turned out to be a very economical reliable car. Probably not rated as high as the Tercel, but I liked it.
As I recall the second gen. Tercel was more highly regarded than the first. There were plenty of both around my neck of the woods throughout the 80’s, and I seem the remember the first gen. Tercel’s did have some issues. In any event, I liked the RWD 1.8L Corollas a lot better.
Way back in the when, these were abundant and cheap out in Texas when my two younger daughters started driving. We had two of these in black , one stick and one automatic, the girls named them the “Junkie twins”. They drove these everywhere and still have fond (?) memories of these cars. I paid $50 for one and $27 for the other both needing some repair to get them on the road. (timing belt on one and head gasket on other, and yes $50 and $27)
Apropos to MTN & SavageATL’s excellent comments, I’m hardly a fan of these Tercels. Like other cars from this period that struggle to meet the most basic requirements for livable transportation, these Tercels were mobile torture devices for masochists. Just looking at the above pictures leaves me cringing in disgust, struggling to repress long-forgotten memories. No, I never personally owned one, but I was a victim all the same: My father owned an ’84 Tercel for 12 agonizing years.
Actually, one of my first automotive memories was the day he picked it up from the stealership on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, back in July of 1984. The delivery seemed to take forever, at least for four year-old me. Crabtree Toyota in Yonkers, New York was hardly renowned for top-notch customer service. Why would they be? These were the decadent years for the Japanese brands, when demand far exceeded supply. Don’t like it? Hit the bricks, pal! As for the man who was about to spend $6000 of his hard earned dollars on a bare-bones Tercel? Well, he can just wait. And wait and wait and wait! At least I had the cars in showroom to keep me occupied, a Cressida with plush button-tufted velour and a nice 4×4 truck.
At long last the paperwork was signed but no new car materialized. The salesman escorted us all out onto the lot in the sweltering humidity. We walked down a lengthy aisle, first past Camrys, then Corollas, and finally all the way to the back where there was a Tercel, parked against a chain-link fence. A tall tree shielded the Tercel from the blistering sun. As for the Tercel, the dealership never bothered to detail it, and it was covered with sap from the aforementioned tree. Dad was not happy. The salesman sheepishly gave him some money for a car wash before hastily absconding the scene, in a quest to find customers who weren’t bottom-feeders.
As for Dad’s Tercel, it was all but identical to the one pictured here. Gray inside and out. 4-speed, vinyl seats, vinyl floor, AM radio, one stinking mirror. Air conditioning? Keep dreaming, son.
Young as I was, what I recall most vividly about that Tercel was that is was an utterly dreadful place to spend any length of time. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The grainy plastics that abounded had a penchant for accruing dirt and grime. Within a few short years, the interior of Dad’s Tercel looked just as filthy as the one pictured above. As a kid, I used to enjoy etching my name through the dirt the steering wheel hub with my fingernail. Just look at the wheel pictured above and imagine…..
And Gawd, that Tercel was so unbearably loud at speed! The gnashing, mechanical noises emitted by the drivetrain were almost agricultural in sound. Bear in mind with the 4-speed, that 3A-U motor was humming along at something like 4,000 revs at 70 mph. Between, that and the buffeting from the wind, (remember, no A/C), you were practically deaf from being sentenced to being a passenger in that wretched car.
Yes, it was reliable. Dad depended on it, so it had to be. He had an hour-long commute in that penalty box, and quickly racked up the miles. 242,000 of them to be exact, all on the original engine, transmission and clutch. For the life of me, I don’t know how he survived the experience and lived to tell the tale. Toyota Tercel: The Little Shitbox That Could.
And he would have probably gone on driving that thing indefinitely, had not rust begun to take its slow, interminable hold. The first signs of rust appeared around 1992, and by 1996 it had become quite the eyesore. But it was the driver’s side door that did it. First the lock wouldn’t work, then the exterior door handle. Dad had to keep the doors unlocked and open the passenger door so he could open the driver’s door from the interior handle. Well eventually the whole mechanism completely broke, forcing my Dad to enter through the passenger door and climb over the shifter and handbrake. That final indignity proved to be the last straw, and in Nov. 1996, Dad drove the Tercel to the local junkyard, and walked away with $25 in hand.
It’s funny, every time you read an article like Paul’s, there are always a few automotive stalwarts who come out of the woodwork to extol the virtues of minimalist transportation devices and bemoan the lack of any modern equivalent. But having lived through the horror, I can assure you that despite a few key virtues, just about all of the former owners of these rudimentary subcompacts (my Dad included…) would have splurged for something far nicer had money not been such an overriding concern. The argument being made is akin to how Thoreau in ‘Walden’ discusses the nobility of poverty, as if somehow being poor is a lofty ideal we should all aspire to. But Thoreau wasn’t poor, indeed far from it, and I would similarly imagine that these cars are only truly enjoyable if you can savor their charms in small intervals, instead of being forced to rely upon them at all times, which in fact was the reality for most.
Great comment.
My parents bought a 4 door Tercel hatch new in 1984. It had a 5-speed and (I believe) factory AC. My parents Usually bought minimally equipped cars, so with AC and cloth seats this was their fanciest car to date. It was the same blue-grey color as this CC. Slow as a slug, although the family 1968 Checker (230 I6, 3-speed) gave it a run for the slowness competition. They drove it for 20 years and 150k miles with little more than routine maintenance.
Wow does this ever bring back memories. Never owned one of these Tercels but have owned some others that were mentioned in the comments. I can also relate to many of the experiences described in some comments too.
My grandfather always bought the most basic stripped down model of any brand he happened to like. “What do you need a radio for? What’s wrong with a little conversation?” “Who needs airconditioning when you can open a window?, anyways it’s only a couple of months a year when you really need it so tough it out.” My aunt picked up on this too and also bought the stripper models. We got a couple of their hand me downs/inheritances and appreciated what we got.
I started driving back in ’81 which was the same year my legal status changed to orphan. I grew up poor so as far as cars go you take what you can get. $%*t box or whatever. I’ve had a few of those deals where one you drive and the other for parts. The $100 cars and even some free ones. I have been underemployed, unemployed and even a starving college student. I’ve been to rock bottom and it’s not all that bad. I have spent weekends swapping motors with the parts car so I could get to class or work on Monday. Roadside repairs that get you home. Thumbing a ride when the car is totaly dead. I’ve done it all. It builds character. If I could do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
Of all the crapcans I had I would never tolerate a missing door card like that. Even if I had to make my own I have my standards. That shredded seat! Get some seat covers for that.
Sometimes I get nostalgic for the past and then I remember how truely auful it really was.
My first car was the hand-me-down butter yellow Datsun 510 wagon, which we loved hard but had been rear ended by a Jag going 40. It was trashed but it was free. I swiftly turned it into an art car and painted Solanum jasminoides (potato vine) on it as “pinstripes” -drove it to my prom and it got a lot of attention, good, bad or otherwise. It had a LOT of character. Because it didn’t lock, it was stolen off the streets of San Francisco, once returned with a soap-on-a-rope, a gigantic bra, some folk music cassettes (check out Ferron- pretty good!) but no wipers, no radio.
I dumped it and found an ’83 silver two door Tercel for cheap. It was pretty rad… wipers, radio, tough as a Jeep and I drove it like one. Parked up curbs, took it off road… truely bullet proof. But dang, so boring on the outside. My older, more esoteric poet-jock-ranked-tennis-player brother suggested it needed to become more. More something. So, we decided the identity from the iconic French fashion house, Chanel, had a typeface so basic that we could immitate it using stick on letters from the hardware store and electrical tape. So, the Chanel mobile was born, with the name stuck on each door. The irony of the most pedestrian, basic Toyota would be a corporate car for the definition of grace, refinement, beauty would be pretty good. People, even in allegedly sophisticated San Francisco, didn’t get it and constantly asked, “what channel do you work for? Are you with Channel ______?” -though there was no number on the door, I’d just reply, “#5” and walk away, usually parked illegally and never once got a ticket.
Get a Tercel, but give it something more. It will reward you endlessly.
My youngest surviving sister had one of these used probably in the late 80’s into early 90’s; hers was a 2 door coupe with automatic in red. It is the only Toyota in our family; for some reason we’ve gone more to Datsun/Nissan for our puchases; said sister still owns a ’97 240SX coupe she bought new and she had another of the same before that; my deceased youngest sister also had a 240SX as well as a 200SX, and I had a Datsun 710 back in the dark ages, almost 50 years ago now.
Her Toyota wasn’t too memorable, she didn’t have too much trouble with it but what she had was a bit odd…there wasn’t a shield any longer on top of the catalytic converter and it apparently heated the floor of the car enough to burn the carpeting inside the passenger compartment. She didn’t trust the car after that and I think got the first of her 2 240SX’s after that.