The E90 has got to be my favorite generation of Corolla, and the two-wheel-drive wagon’s long been one of my favorite versions. Seemingly becoming rare on the ground, examples like this rust-free ice-blue automatic are therefore worth capturing (incidentally, post 1990 facelift, alomst all came identitcally equipped and in this color).
Conceived in a very different mold than the taller and more family-oriented Civic wagon, Colt wagon or Corolla All-Trac, this uber traditional compact wagon primarily faced off against the Escort wagon and Sentra wagon (neither of which had the Corolla’s raised roof, refinement or power). It was art teachers, sculptors, music instructors, thespians and avid gardeners who bought cars like these. Factor in superior quality, and the Corollas in particular had a very specific–and loyal–market.
Unfortunately, cars like the Civic wagon and Corolla All-Trac more accurately predicted the future, and its the Scions and the Matrix which cater to this market today. In a way, these latest cars are perfect for the sort of genteel older adult who used to buy compact wagons new, but the desperately youthful and pathetically unhip essence of Red Bull which infuses their product planning means that those who should be buying them are justifiably alienated. Is it so hard to resist the attempt to be cool?
Honestly, for all the desperate youth-targeted marketing, I see a lot of mini-utes driven by people I assume are similar in demographics to the buyers of these wagons: older buyers, either childless or with kids who’ve already left home, looking for painless all-around versatility for a small business or just the usual homeowner chores without sacrificing too much fuel economy or parking ease. The cute utes also have the advantage of easier entry and exit, which is handy if you have joint or back problems.
Yes, in many cases I agree. The most blatantly-targeted examples are the ones which most often find loving owners in earlier boomers who value utility above all else (i.e. Element and bB).
My parents were interested in the first Scion xB for most of the above reasons, but said that when they went to the local Scion dealer, they were actually turned away, presumably for not fitting the desired Edgy Youth demographic. This was when Scion was new, so dealers might now be more accommodating, but my parents were understandably pissed off, took their business elsewhere, and I don’t think would ever go back to that dealer.
I think the modern auto industry is light years out of touch with the younger buyers they keep trying clumsily to entice (not understanding why said young people have almost no money being one major part of the problem). There are few things as embarrassing as 40something marketing executives trying to seem hip and edgy to appeal to the Yout’.
We owned the first year of the next generation of Corolla wagon for 11 years and 90K almost trouble-free miles. I say “almost” because the waterpump was replaced under warranty. We bought ours new, a month after the ’94’s were released, sitting unloved on a dealer lot with a 5 speed and no AC. We had the dealer add AC – for a very reasonable cost – and it was a practical family vehicle to replace our not-so-trouble-free E12 528i. The replacement was a Forester XT, and it too is gone, and I sometimes wish the Corolla were still in our household. Amazingly roomy for it’s size, quite economical, but despite the specs seeming exotic for someone of my generation (fuel injection! 16 valve DOHC engine! 5 speed! low-profile 60 series tires!) it was dull to drive and not great in snow or even rain. All things the Forester excelled at. Our current Gen2 Prius is more like Corolla again … anyway, back to this CC: I see more of this older gen wagon than I do the -93+ wagons. And the RAV4 killed off the Corolla wagon for good, but I’d argue that the Prius V is its replacement, though they aren’t very popular in otherwise Prius-heavy California.
When a car is “not great in the snow or rain,” my reaction is always at the Michelin store. With quality tires and a manual transmission, it should have been nearly unstoppable.
Summer: MXV4.
Winter: X-Ice.
Manually detached “automatic” seat belt …
Yes; were these SO difficult to negotiate? I always left them buckled (I never owned a car with one personally and whoever was driving me around in their own car, so-equipped, was always so perplexed. Thanks for the ride, genius, but learn to use your seatbelt!).
I find the “leave buckled” kind an order of magnitude less obnoxious than motorized shoulder belts. The non-moving variety aren’t necessarily at a good angle — I applaud the return of height-adjustable anchors, although some cars could really stand to have another inch or two of travel in both directions — but at least they aren’t trying to noisily throttle you.
The one on my dad’s Legacy broke in the up position so he unbuckled it to get out.
A college girlfriend had one of these, except in gray. Nice basic car, nothing special, but it seemed to have that Toyota build quality. Her parents were academics, and passed the car along to her, so perhaps it fits the mold!
Also agreed that things like the xB and Matrix are the natural follow-ups. More space there than I initially realized–I have friends who have a 1st-gen Matrix and a Vibe, and another friend who has been sufficiently impressed with those two that he’s considering one also. They’re all in a band, and two of them are very much into biking, so the cargo capacity comes in handy.
These used to be common in Ithaca, NY with those exact demographics. Nice looking wagons indeed and I still see a number in Portland, OR. Hyundai had an Elentra wagon for a few years, but that is the most recent smaller wagon I can think of.
Never knew the Sentra came in Wagon form and I assume the Tsuru in Mexico is only a sedan.
I can confirm that Ithaca was crawling with all sorts of wagons, and continues the trend now.
When we first immigrated, Subaru Loyales and Legacies, Volvo 240/740 wagons, Corolla and Tercel wagons (often in 4wd guise), Civic Wagovans, all were abundant. Sadly our heavily salted roads took their toll. There is an older couple down the block with a baby blue RT4wd Civic (a 1990 I think), it’s rusty but still serves them faithfully.
Currently, the top 3 cars in Ithaca I saw when I visited over labor day were Prii, Foresters, and CRVs. Outbacks are also plentiful both old and new, but out of the brand new cars the Forester is the #1 Subaru there. Honda Fits are also rather prevalent.
My own family started our Ithacan car ownership with a brown 1982 Civic Wagon, with a fancy “5Speed” badge on the hatch, and plenty of rust. Moved onto a 1985 Civic Sedan that got totaled in a bad rear-end accident. Next, bought in 1996 was a 1990 Civic Wagon in Cappuccino Brown Metallic (fwd, automatic). That car served us faithfully until 2007 when we sold it and bought the first year of the Honda Fit. Drove out to Patterson NJ just to pay MSRP for a base model with a stick shift, no one local ever had any in stock.
The Sentra came in a wagon form, but not for the US market. It was called the “Tsubame” in Mexico and had a different front clip from its Tsuru counterpart.
We actually did have the Sentra wagon in the US, in both the B11 and B12 generations (1982 to 1990). The B12 version had a very rakish angle to its D-pillar, reminiscent of the Audi 5000 Avant.
Same front clip as the sedan/coupe.
I don’t know about genteel Perry, but I am a retired teacher and would buy one of these in an instant. We have a cube as a DD and I always wonder why these were supposed to sell to the young. Like this wagon, it has cargo space and is economical and dependable.
The car I would want but never bought was the Honda Element. Same attributes, just a little more heavy duty. Don’t know why I never pulled the trigger.
You can sell old people a young person car but you cannot reverse that.
Well to me, a “young person,” these compact wagons were like the sedans they upon they were based (economical, unpretentious and sometimes, rewarding to drive) with added utility. Some replacements like the Element have the utility (and then some) but are: overstyled and less efficient. In other words, very deliberate next to the cars they replaced which just *happened* to become cool. The first-gen Scion xB/bB and xA were good follow ups, but then Toyota screwed it up with the successors.
For all that the Honda Element was extremely roomy inside and had most of the other Honda goodness, its deliberately ugly styling always turned me off. There was no reason for it to look like a Velveeta box.
Toyota still builds compact wagons, that is, fully based on a C-segment car. Gasoline / diesel / hybrid (exactly the same technology as the Prius). Manual / automatic.
I would think that a music teacher would prefer a Sonata. 🙂 Actually, I knew a musician who played an acoustic bass. He needed a wagon to carry it and the last one I knew of was a Mazda Protege5, which suited him quite nicely. I would prefer one of those to this just for the zoom zoom factor, but the Toyota is probably a better long term car from an ownership perspective.
This car strikes me as the Valiant of the 90s. Solid, functional, not unattractive but certainly not beautiful either. I had zero interest in these when they were new. As I approach old-fart-dom, I would drive one of these now.
Over here, they all tended to be white and manual – there’s one sitting opposite my office now with a For Sale sign on it – the sedans are much more common, however.
Seems ideal for daily use as it proved itself as very reliable vehicle. An evergreen. Was the Wagon badged as Geo/Chevrolet PRIZM or only as Toyota???
The wagon was Toyota only, as I recall.
Yup you are correct the Corolla got the wagon and the Geo Prizm got a hatchback model that Toyota USA did not offer(Toyota did offer it in Europe and in other markets as the Corolla LIftback.)
Here is the Geo Prizm hatchback. I would not mind getting one of these in white with a stick.
This is actually a surprisingly complicated point.
In Japan, the Corolla had a cousin called the Toyota Sprinter, which was based on the same shell, platform, and running gear, but had some different sheet metal and trim. The big different was that they were sold through separate dealer channels, sort of like the U.S. Ford Escort and Mercury Lynx. Corolla had its own channel and Sprinters were sold through the Toyota Auto network.
In the E90 generation, this five-door body style was exclusive to the Sprinter line, a model called Sprinter Cielo. Corolla dealers didn’t have a direct equivalent, but instead had three- and five-door versions of the Corolla FX (which was dropped in the U.S. after the E80), which Auto dealers didn’t get.
The U.S.-built co-venture Chevrolet Nova and Geo Prizm were based on the Sprinter with some additional sheet metal changes and modifications to suit U.S. regulations. So, the E90 Prizm adopted the five-door body, although sales were awful and that version was dropped by 1992.
In Europe and some non-U.S. export markets, Toyota sold the Sprinter Cielo as a Corolla (I think it was the Corolla SX in Australia). However, I think those versions are basically the JDM Cielo with Corolla insignia, so they’re not identical to the Prizm version. They do look very similar, in any event.
We got a similar-looking but slightly earlier Corolla five door fastback hatch called a Seca.
Y’know, given that in Spanish and Portuguese, “seca” means “dry,” it wouldn’t be my first choice of names for a relatively bland car…
Entirely Good Body Dent Free. Fantastic Article Car Excellent. All Cars Eat Gas. Good Boys Deserve Fine Automobiles. On that Note, I’ll give it a Rest.
Might be a base model? That would treble my enjoyment of this vehicle.
It looks like a boring old station wagon (to the untrained eye). But one has to admire it for its reliability and being practical. This one is in beautiful shape. Here in Canada even the sedan versions of these are becoming less in numbers. Rust starts to eat away at the rear wheel wells. I’m not sure if I fit into the “young person” demographic but I always liked the idea of station wagons for the cargo room and the fuel economy of a car (as long as it’s not a V8). I would sometimes see the later model (1993-1997) Corolla wagons which also seem rare. I would also compare them to the Accord wagons.
Yeah not bad old cars but having owned both a Sentra wagon and Corolla 5 door in the last 12 months the Sentra is the better car mine had a 1500cc twin cam 5 speed and went well for a small Jappa the Corolla was a 1300cc 5 speed but with factory stiffer suspension and wider rims it handled well but was gutless and poorly equipped I sold the Toyota to a friend he ran it for nearly a year then went to a 406 diesel Pug I kept the Sentra as a utility hack then unloaded it via facebook NZ is littered with Corollas though many are the poorer driving versions ex JDM.
The styling looks very honest and mature compared to the current Corolla eyesore that Toyota sells now. I think the problem with the current Corolla is that it is trying too hard to be cool.
Agreed. The Yaris-based sedan sold under the Corolla name in Japan is a lot more what I expect from the nameplate.
Is the Yaris sedan basically the JDM Corolla? I wasn’t too clear on that.
Here is a picture of the JDM version.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla#mediaviewer/File:Toyota_Corolla_Axio_Hybrid_(NKE165)_front.JPG
Perry is right. This looks a lot better than the US version.
I thought driving this generation of Corolla was a hoot in its day. This wagon is the ancestor of our Matrix, a car that, although not perfect, has served admirably. I would buy another in a heartbeat, but for some reason, Toyota isn’t offering the Auris. Toyota, are you listening? Hello?
Supposedly the Auris is due to be released here within a year as the Scion Xb replacement.
I’ve heard that as well, but it will be a little stale by the time they do sell it. It will, however, be far newer than the 2003 model we now have. They’re losing sales while they fiddle around; we won’t wait forever.
Had a ’92. It was a near perfect car (and form factor) and I should have never traded it for a near perfect ’95. Or I should have kept that one, whatever.
BTW, Perry, I see a near perfect Thai restaurant in the background of that second photo.
My uncle (not a music teacher) had a red one which he bought a year old in ’91. Drove it at least 10 years.
My music teacher, on the other hand, had an ’87or ’88 Camry Wagon, which eventually was replaced by a beige ’97 Camry LE sedan with V6.