Datsun (Nissan) was the pioneer in selling compact pickup trucks to Americans, starting way back in 1957. The Datsun 211 filled a small niche that no one else had identified, and sales grew slowly but steadily, mainly on the West Coast initially. Toyota had to play catch-up, especially after its larger Stout pickup failed to gain much traction. Starting in 1969, the smaller Hilux pickup arrived and began its long battle with Datsun’s pickup.
There were several factors that eventually vaulted Toyota into the #1 spot, but perhaps none were more significant as the new for-1975 SR-5 Sport Truck. Not only did it have snazzy graphics (barely visible on this faded survivor) and a nicer interior, but most importantly, it had a 5-speed overdrive gearbox, a revelation to all those California drivers who spent so much time on the freeways in their buzzy 4-speed mini-pickups.
Here’s how it looked when new. And no, this generation wasn’t called Hilux anymore in the US, just Toyota Truck; Sport Truck, in this case. Maybe it should have been called “Commuter Truck”, given that’s where its overdrive fifth was most relevant and appreciated.
The graphics are very faded, but here’s what’s left of them on the hood. And under it is Toyota’s 2.2 L 20R four, a high-torque hemi-head SOHC engine that was equally at home in the sporty Celica and the Corona sedan. it didn’t exactly turn the pickup into a stormer, but with a 0-60 time of 13.9 seconds, it hustled right along. And of course that fifth gear made it ever so much more pleasant.
Toyota started a global revolution with its 5-speed overdrive manual transmission; which first arrived in the Corolla in 1972 and then a beefed-up version became available with the larger four in the Celica and Corona in 1974, before it showed up in the trucks in ’75. Prior to this, 5-speed transmission had been something rather exotic and expensive, the domain mostly of Italian cars, and their five gears were closely spaced more for maximum performance than quiet cruising in overdrive. The icing on the cake was that the Toyota unit was as slick-shifting as the best gearboxes out there, 5-speed or not. This was one of Toyota’s most brilliant moves, and forced the whole industry to play catch-up, which took quite a while, especially with the domestic brands.
The business end. “Free Your Mind And The Rice Will Follow”. It is Eugene, after all.
Only the black side stripes are still visible. But the body looks quite solid and serviceable, even without the rest.
And undoubtedly, it still gets used when the need arises.
Related CC reading:
Automotive History: The Toyota 5 Speed Transmission Takes Over the World
Vintage R&T Review: 1975 Toyota SR-5 Pickup – “A Surprising Combination of Utility and Driving Pleasure”
I would have been 8 when these were new. I looked at them enviously, as they all seemed to be driven by an adventurous young person on their way to something super interesting. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me.
Great sticker too,
The other innovation was that long bed. Mini-trucks typically had very short beds, relative to the (then) Detroit offerings. This Toyota was a start at allowing American small truck buyers to really configure the tricks to their hauling needs. IIRC, Datsun began offering long beds at about the same time.
I wish there was a truck like this available today. I had a 1986 Toyota long bed PU. 22re engine, 5 speed 1 ton rated. Would get 25 mpg empty, and 18-19 MPG towing my 5,000 race car and trailer. I finally retired it with over 400,000 miles and never had the head off. I would do a rebuild, but for the body rust.
One of the things about these Toyotas, going all the way down to the first generation Tacoma (‘Taco’) that lasted till 2004, was that if you had a 5-speed, 2wd, 4 cylinder, and didn’t get the high-riding Pre-Runner version, they sat low to the ground and drove and handled kinda like an old RWD live rear axle “sports car”, think MG or Fiat or Alfa Romeo spider, but they also cruised very nicely on the freeway.
The newer Tacomas are nice trucks and all, but they have gotten bigger and ride higher, and just don’t have that same kind of feel. I have had two different first generation Tacomas for 20+ years.
I know there is a large discussion about final drive ratios and the like in one of the linked articles, but I always wondered why Toyota (and others) didn’t make their 5-speed with the 5th gear 1:1 and just used a higher (lower numerically) final drive ratio on the rear axle, to get the same benefits but lower wear and tear on both the transmission and differential. Probably there were cost and design issues which made the overdrive ratio the better choice.
In all constant-mesh syncromesh transmissions, the actual gears are always in mesh anyway, so I don’t see how that would affect wear in the transmission. Not all transmissions had a 1:1 gear ratio at all; the classic air-cooled VW transmission had an 0.89 4th gear ratio.
Many O/D 5 gear boxes were just a development of 4-speed boxes, with an O/D 5th added.
The gears are in mesh, but aren’t transmitting power, so the forces on the gears and bearings (and resulting noise and wear) are much reduced.
I realize that, from a development standpoint, not having to tool up a complete new gearset is an advantage, and there may be other issues such as having a lower (higher numerically) first gear that may have some engineering issues associated. Still, in a perfect world…
Current Mazda Miata (ND) has that. Top gear (6th) is drive-drive 1:1, with the final drive ratio optimized for that.
You are right. There is no reason to go “over-drive” and have the final drive doing the opposite. Ideally the final drive should be the actual “under drive” ratio and the top gear should be 1:1
Current Mazda Miata (ND) has that. Top gear (6th) is drive-drive 1:1, with the final drive ratio optimized for that.
You are right. There is no reason to go “over-drive” and have the final drive doing the opposite. Ideally the final drive should be the actual “under drive” ratio and the top gear should be 1:1
Direct drive makes the most sense in a RWD design with longitudinal transmission where the input and output shafts are inline. On a transverse FWD or mid-engine arrangement, the gearbox output shaft is usually not inline, the output is to another “meshed gear” (the differential ring gear), so direct drive isn’t possible.
Toyota five-speeds of this era typically had the same internal ratios (or close to it) as the four-speed, with an overdrive fifth. This was pretty obviously a matter of manufacturing commonality; a close-ratio five-speed with direct-drive fifth would have been a bigger departure from the four-speed boxes in tooling, with fewer shared parts. On JDM five-speed cars, the five-speed was typically accompanied by a shorter (higher numerical) axle ratio, which had the effect of shortening the lower ratios for better performance while leaving the cruising RPM about the same or a little lower.
Here’s a comparison of the T40 and T50 four- and five-speed gearboxes from the Carina and (non-U.S.) Celica. Fifth is added behind the normal four-speed pattern, in the same case.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the truck (and SUV) in the successful rise of the Japanese vehicular invasion of the US.
Truck buyers in that era were often pragmatic people. They simply wanted the least expensive truck that would get their particular job done with the least hassle and downtime, and the most longevity. Sure, there were still many truck buyers whose patriotism kept them from considering imported trucks, but even some of them were won over when they saw the experiences of their friends and neighbors with Japanese trucks.
It was also helpful in the Japanese truck invasion that many folks could “get away with” driving a Japanese truck because it said “Ford” or “Chevrolet” on the tailgate – I.e. LUV and Courier.
Can one even buy a regular cab 2WD 4cyl truck anymore, especially with a long bed? If even possible it would be special order for sure.
The regular cab is all but dead in the US. Ford and Chevy offer them in the lower spec trims in the full-size line. RAM no longer offers a half-ton regular cab, only 2500 and up. There are no midsize trucks sold with a regular cab.
I would think so since few buy such trucks for what they were intended back in the day. Today’s trucks are today’s passenger car. They drive more like a car than any kind of truck. Certainly don’t drive like my 65 and which is the exact reason why I like it so much. Manual steering, power drum brakes but still drum, stiff suspension but quiet, lots of wind noise, and that hollow clang when you close the door. What is not to love, of course it isn’t a daily driver.
Tacoma is offered in a regular (utility) cab “longish” 6.5 foot bed. I see many of them around here, mostly in business fleets. The Silverado 1500 is a four cylinder as well. I rented one from U-haul, reg cab and eight foot bed. A local Chevy dealer that caters to fleets has them in stock.
JM Solberg…… i think maybe it may have something to do with engineering. I may be wrong but the rear axle ratio if too high could maybe run into issues with the pinion getting too large to be practical.
Coming of automotive age in the mid-late 1970s, for a long time, I simply assumed that 5-speed transmissions on a “mass-market” vehicle were a Japanese thing.
After all, in 1977 or, so it seemed most every Japanese car, even the ugly Datsun B-210 and F-10 offered a FIVE-speed.
That year, GM also offered a 5-speed on the Vega and Vega derivatives and on the…Collonades (I wonder if it was the same trans as the Vega had..) for the first time.
As noted, generally, 5-speeds were associated with Italian cars and Porsche. BMW had no 5-speeds.
As usual, I digressed….
Sometime in the past 10-20 years, I’ve come to realize that TOYOTA was the FIRST mass-market car maker to offer a 5-speed in an econobox, in the Corolla (as noted above). That is impressive. Their Japanese competitors were simply more nimble (and perhaps may have ALSO been planning 5-speeds) than the American and European manufacturers.
Until the past few years, while there have been many Toyotas I liked, I was not really a Toyota fan. More of a Toyota detractor, as I found their cars kind of boring, even as I admired their reputation.
But, back in the 1980s, when I was a Toyota detractor, I do remember TWO significant milestones that I associate with Toyota:
The first mass-priced FOUR-speed automatic, in the original (US-spec) Camry, circa 1982-83, I think.
And, the first FOUR-VALVE per cylinder engine in a mass-priced car, in the 2nd gen (87-88-89ish) Toyota Camry.
I think they were as innovative as the 5-speed manual.
And I think these three innovations show why Toyota has been the best automaker in the world since the 1990s: because their tenet of “do not make, accept, or pass on a defect” means they are conservative in adopting “new technology”, but their tenet of “keep the customer happy” means they will go the extra mile and for innovations that actually really WILL benefit the customer, with minimal downside (cost, reliability), they will provide innovation and lead the market.
(The Prius is another example of that).
C/D, in 2021 or 22 had a graphic that showed the percent of models available with “technologly” that I consider dubious, like stop/start, turbos, direct fuel injection, CVTs, and Toyota lagged way behind everyone else in the percent of their products that offered these craptastic features.
Yet, if it really makes a difference, chances are Toyota will be first or second to put it out there. Very impressive when you consider that, in the 1980s, Toyota was a smaller company and more nimble as a result, whereas today, it is the biggest automaker in the world.
The first mass-produced four-speed automatic was in fact the GM Hydra-Matic, which had four speeds from 1940. It didn’t have an overdrive fourth, but Hydra-Matic cars had a higher numerical axle ratio than Synchro-Mesh cars, to similar effect.
Er, lower numerical axle ratio, I mean.
As usual, I digressed…. LOL…
https://youtu.be/12AXEk-uhIE?si=75cEasY71Shhx-_K
The five-speed on mass-market cars was a huge step forward.
Toyota also has two (actually three) other first that really benefitted motorists:
the first FOUR-speed automatic on a mass-market FOUR-cylinder car (the original US Camry, around 1983)
the first (or among the first) standard 4-valve-per-cylinder engine on a mass market car (appropriately enough, the 2nd gen Toyota Camry in 1988
The third does not excite me, but from the few folks I’ve spoken to who own one, it excites them, the hybrid system pioneered by the Prius.
At the other extreme, in 2021 Toyota was a “laggard” on features that I don’t care for: turbos, direct fuel injection, stop/start, and CVTs. It’s less of a laggard today, though.
Toyota is a massive laggard when it come to EVs. That may come to bite them, as the Chinese have become the undisputed winners in EVs.
Toyota is also a laggard in unitized software for software-defined vehicles, a key element of the near future, something that Tesla pioneered and the Chinese are also at the forefront of.
Mercedes had a four speed slush box in 1977……
-Nate
The first Mercedes K4A 025 four-speed autos were in 1961, but the four-speed Hydra-Matic had been around for 22 years by then.
Great article, I love my 78 longbed SR5. I built the 20/22r hybrid motor (20r head on early 22r block) for ours and it rips!
IMHO, these are the best of the small trucks offered back then, with the huge flaw of the rotting beds. There were a few around our neighborhood, all of them had rusted through bed side panels before the warranty ran out. That seam was an insane thing to do, and I would bet it killed a lot of future sales, as all the neighborhood ones weren’t around for too long, and then were replaced with Ford/GM/Dodge trucks which did hang on until they were basket cases. A lot of Rangers, S10’s, and Dakotas. None of the Toyotas ever seemed to get anything done to replace sheetmetal on the beds, they would have treated lumber added to them to keep them together, or more commonly, an entire bed made from treated lumber, usually not painted, so it would become gray with rusted hardware very quickly.
^The 84-88 generation Toyota trucks are notorious for rusting on that bed seam. Didnt matter around where I live in Tennessee, but now days(40 years later) any “survivor” Toyota around in these parts will have some rust blooming to the surface on that seam. Not total rot thru, but its rusting from behind, needs to be cut out to be properly repaired. Something you simply dont see on unrestored 1970’s/80’s Dodge, Ford or Chevy pickups from the south.
As for the 5 speed/direct drive being top gear, well that flat out sucks. Top gear should always be an overdrive. Thats one of the few things I hate about Miatas, buzzy/too many rpms on the interstate. Gimmie a Camaro or Corvette with the t-56 six speed. Even with a 4.10 gear swap, 100mph is about 2500rpm