Here’s a little secret: Back when I was in my second year of college, I wanted one of these and tried (in vain) to figure out a way to afford it. The one I wanted was white instead of ivory like this one and with the gray interior instead of the tan. Seeing this example in the junkyard immediately took me back to my college days, leafing through the brochure, and doing the math on the payment vs my paystubs from my sandwich delivery job at Osos Street Subs.
After all these years I still find it to be an attractive car; that character line running down the side gives it a lot more, uh, character than usual for cars of this class. And the fact that it was available as a 2-door coupe instead of just a hatchback as with the prior generation was a plus too, it gave the whole line a little more class.
I could be mistaken but I don’t think we have ever featured this generation of Tercel at CC. Plenty of Gen 1 and 2, and then the wagon is evergreen of course, and the later blobbier ones made an appearance or two as well, but not this one, at least not that I could locate.
Toyota introduced this model for the 1987 model year; this one is a second year 1988 model and is pretty much the same. The hatchback caused a minor stir among budget econo-freaks when a version was introduced as the Tercel EZ and stickered under $6,000 which was really Hyundai Excel and Yugo territory around that time.
As decontented as a Tercel in general already was, the EZ really went to town tossing anything out that could remotely cost money. A girl I was dating at the time had one, as I recall complete with very shiny and sort of sticky vinyl seating, a 4-speed instead of 5-speed and rubber flooring. I’m sure there were other indignities, but at least hers was red.
I didn’t remember that these didn’t have a rev-counter. Still, the instrumentation that is there is neatly presented, easy to read, and does the job it needs to do, I suppose. This car made it to about 219,000 miles, not bad at all but nothing overly spectacular for a Toyota.
The interior is fairly basic but attractive with its two toned theme. Besides the driver’s bolster and side of the seat, the fabric has held up quite well to 31 years in the Denver sunshine.
The door panel has held up even better. A) It’s still attached and B) It looks like it’s hardly seen any wear. A win in my book. That whole upper lighter section is all cloth, kind of a heavy tweedy sort that hides dirt and apparently resists wear, there is many a much newer car with door panels in much worse condition.
The backseat is tight but serviceable, again, almost no wear but likely wasn’t used very much at all. Looks like someone tried to get under the seat for some reason or other, and probably left the mat on it while looking for change or whatever.
Trunk space is alright, of course the hatchback would be more useful but coupe style counts for something, or did back in the day at least. A simple trunk liner, nothing on the lid, simple hinges, and it all works just fine. No rust either!
If you squint just a little bit, isn’t there just a touch of BMW 3-series in there? Maybe squint a little more? I think I probably squinted a lot in 1988 when I was looking at this.
The little 1.5liter 4-cylinder with 12 valves put out an economically respectable 78hp and 87 lb-ft of torque. That got you 31/37mpg with the overdrive 5-speed. It only had to push 2000 (yes 2000!) pounds around so that power figure is a little better than it seems at first glance. That also let it run on 155 section 13-inch tires, all in the name of economy and thriftiness of operation.
The hubcaps are an add-on, stock the Tercel didn’t have any, just little silver steelies. Do you remember those little antennas a a lot of Japanese cars had just like this one at the top of the A-pillar? You could stick your hand out the window and either pull it out or retract it for a car wash or whatever.
Ah, a good ol’ J-VIN. Built in Japan in June of 1988, right as I was finishing my first year of college. The Tercel was a good seller for Toyota in the States, and lasted for several more generations before it was shuffled off after the 1999 model year in favor of the likes of the Echo and I suppose the Scion brand cars through no fault of its own. I haven’t seen one of these coupes on the road for a long time, so it was good to catch up here the other day even if the headline references the Toyota tagline that ended in 1986. By 1988 it was “Who could ask for anything more”, which I had to look up and realized I have zero recollection of. So I’ll just end here with a good feeling about this car.
This car is in great shape considering both age and mileage, which shows how well designed these cars were. Toyota paid attention to the details, which is why they’re where they are today. The hatchback would have been my choice.
I also thought these were an attractive design, and would’ve considered one if I was in the market for a new car, but I didn’t need a new car during the time these were sold. And for me, there were so many appealing small cars for sale at the time, who knows what I would have actually purchased.
The only negative about most any small car of that time is how susceptible those cars were in a crash. At least you could see around the “A” pillars easily.
Aside from the damage on the right side, this car is too nice to be in the on deck circle for the crusher. I haven’t seen one of these in some time.
Well, can you afford it now? 🙂
‘Shiny and sticky vinyl’ appropriately describes the vinyl used on these things. My father’s ’84 Tercel was no better. Oh what a feeling…
I had the hatchback version of this car about 20 years ago.
I needed a cheap work car and bought it with 150,000 miles on it for $750.
I didn’t do a good job inspecting the car before I bought it. Usually I would have checked it out better, but I just test drove it and gave it a quickie look-over.
The brake pad sensors had been bent back so I didn’t realize it needed pads until a week later they started scraping the rotors. Pretty sneaky, that guy who sold it to me was.
The engine leaked coolant.
It leaked and burned oil.
The carburetor would idle high and low by itself.
The clutch linkage disconnected itself.
The parking brake cable snapped after two days.
I didn’t keep it long and sold it to someone I knew for $500, and was honest about it’s issues.
A week later a CV joint started clicking and popping for that new owner.
Then a tie rod broke.
Within a month the timing belt broke and he junked it.
None of this was Toyota’s fault, it was just a neglected car.
And I didn’t do my diligence when I bought it, because, reasons.
I replaced it with a ’93 Geo Metro. Manual. Fun little car.
That same guy wanted it after he junked the Tercel.
So, feeling bad that he got screwed on the Tercel, I sold him the Geo for the $1000 I paid for it.
And I replaced it with a ’92 Mustang coupe.
A week later the Geo’s brake line broke. Then the timing belt broke.
He asked me to sell him the Mustang but I didn’t want to see him get screwed again.
I drove the Mustang for eight years. Drove perfect when I sold it.
I didn’t sell it to that same guy though. By then he had a Grand Am and a second Grand Am.
I sold the Mustang to a guy at work, who had seen how reliable it had been and wanted it.
A week later his daughter was driving it, and it overheated (probably thermostat).
She continued driving it home and warped the head.
You have an unconscious sixth sense about when to get rid of a car, but please, stop selling cars to people!
Nobody asks to buy them from me anymore. 😀
Who’s ready for a TOYOTATHON???
Toyota build “perfect” automobiles. How dare you insinuate that anything could go wrong with one even as a used vehicle.
My brother had a dark red 89 like this.
This article car was a big improvement over the very first front wheel drive Tercel that was available in the USA.
That first gen car was one of the few mistakes Toyota made in America.
Around the time these came out I was driving my first car, an ’83 second gen Tercel, 5-door with a pokey automatic. I remember thinking that the coupe body style on these seemed more grown-up and stylish. All things are relative, I guess.
I miss Toyota’s scratchy tweed fabrics from this period. They wore well and looked upscale enough. So much more appealing than the dreary and shiny industrial fabrics we get in cars today, mostly as a penalty for not upgrading to mediocre leather.
Perfect automobiles ah no far from it actually, I drove a Tercel recently, having failed to be able to remove the EGR valve from my C5 I got my garage to do it, I was led to a pale green Tercel for my trip home, auto matic with the ex JDM ignition lock out its origins were obvious, it got me home ok it that buzzy way the Japanese do so well running errands was definitely its forte easy to park it didnt seem to use any fuel, well my fuel anyway, Later on the return trip I aimed ot at the {uketapu hill it did thje climb and hairpins as well as my 59 Minx does though a lot quieter and in slightly more comfort sweeping curves at our 62mph speed limit the Minx feels more planted, but all in all one would be ok for a round town puddle jumper though I’ll stick with my Citroen now the warning light is off and an EGR blanking plate is in.
Another excellent find. The long term ruggedness of Toyota is reflected here.
Toyota styling was going more mainstream during this era. I kind of missed the quirky design of the previous gen Tercels. Especially the SR5 wagons. Their styling was now looking closer to Nissan as well. As this Tercel Coupe appeared related to the Sentra Sport Coupe. And the Sentra 3-door hatch and Tercel equivalent, bore a strong resemblance as well.
A former co-worker of mine bought one of these brand new. It had the automatic transmission and may or may not have had air conditioning. Was it ever slow with four adults in it. I know because she would always let someone else drive it when carpooling. What I remember most is that she would not shut up about how wonderful it was. Then she made a point to tell me I should junk my old car and get one of these. At the time I was daily driving a heavily modified ’69 510 wagon. Even though she crossed the line insulting the ride of a 20-something guy, I didn’t get angry. I told her to look me up when your Tercel is 20yrs old and we’ll go for a ride in it.
In 2007 or so I was driving my current “hot-rod Datsun”, no longer daily driven, in to work when I spotted her waiting to turn left in to her uncle’s shop where she worked. I slowed down, blew the horn and rolled up driver’s door to driver’s door. With a grin and a wave I dumped the clutch and I was gone. She had a surprised look on her face and definitely wasn’t driving that old Tercel.
Another encounter with this model Tercel happened in the mid 2000’s when my buddy’s friend picked us up to hit the bars in the old Tercel hatchback they had fixed up. As I was getting in he apologized for driving such an old beater. I said don’t worry about it and that I too had driven cars that would double in value every time I filled the gas tank. He laughed so hard I though we would have to call the paramedics.
The featured car looks to be in decent condition. Up here in the salty north we would say it’s mint.
Tercel… official car for Generation X. For a lot of us in our late 40s-early 50s, this was our generation’s first new car. At least around Seattle we were buying these, Mazda 323 sedans, Sentras and small Japanese pick ups. These vehicles represented a “cheap and cheerful” automotive era that doesn’t exist anymore.
Handsome little car. Although if that “scratchy tweed” cloth is anything like that in the Hilux my dad when I was a kid, then yuck. It looks nicer though so it might feel nicer.
“Oh what a feeling” has never ceased to be Toyota’s tagline here. I’m pretty sure all their commercials end with it, including the person(s) jumping.
FYI, our 5 speed stick shift ‘93 Corolla in the mid-level DX trim didn’t have a tachometer either, with a seemingly identical instrument cluster to this Tercel. As I recall, the tach may have actually been a separate option, not part of any package. We didn’t have A/C either, though we added factory A/C at the time of purchase … maybe A/C and the tach were typically bundled together?
When you buy a used car, be sure to pop out the bench seat in back and look at what’s under it- artifacts from previous owners, and sometimes money. Sort of a history of the car’s life.
I bought two cars in the seventies which revealed remnants of marijuana under the back seat. One was a late model Budget rental.
Went with my buddy to look at a used car, being sold by a dealer and found a baggie with a little weed still in it in the trunk, laying in the corner.
Well it was sold by a dealer. 😎
I remember an ivory Tercel EZ parked in my middle school, always next to what I presume was the owners classroom. Didn’t realize it was a strippo at the time because all Tercels looked the same, with no real uplevel trim package. There was a seldom ordered Tercel LE in the following generation but if I recall correctly power windows were unavailable at any price.
A family moved in my building when I was a child and had the 5 door variant of this generation in red. I realized years later it was an exceedingly rare car and is probably one of maybe several I’d ever seen in my life – and in Los Angeles! Always liked that car though and would probably buy one for gits and shiggles if I found one today.
The interior treatment on these always impressed me, looking both sportier and more premium than both generations of Corolla this overlapped with.
Not very familiar with the Tercels as they were never sold in my neck of the woods (except for the 3rd generation 4WD wagon under a different name) but I never knew the coupe shape existed.
A shame Toyota (or anyone else for that matter) doesn’t make cars like this any more.
I reckon it got scrapped for some really small reason, if any reason at all. It is old and nobody was driving it, so off to the bone yard. Providing it has compression, it would be relatively easy to get it going.
These cars are famous for being about as reliable as any car can be. Of course even Toyota has had the odd stinker, but if you are using your own dosh to buy one, chances are you’ll love it and it will do everything you ask. Their volume models like this Tercel are very good cars and their modern stuff is just as good.
I do, however, find them as dull as dishwater and slightly antediluvian, so driving a Toyota would not appeal to me much.
My wife and I had a Tercel hatchback of this generation in 1989 or 1990 which we bought used with 12,000 miles from National Car Rental. My wife didn’t drive much or far so it was a good choice for her as she didn’t care much about cars. We only had it about three years or so, during which it performed its appointed task of getting my wife from home to work and back perfectly well. I did have to replace a battery, the tires, and the brakes; I was never sure if it was because the car was built to rental spec or if all Tercels had the same cheap equipment as OEM, but I was a little disappointed. The car, an automatic, was gutless, but that was irrelevant to my wife. The A/C was surprisingly good for the tiny engine, and that was a big plus. The interior was cheap, yeah, but it was a cheap car, and it never showed any wear or had anything fall off or rattle. We did make one long trip in the car, which involved driving through the mountains of West Virginia. For this use, the car was a disaster because it was totally underpowered for the mountains, and the sway in the handling made us both seasick.
I never liked it but had no real reason to justify disliking it either. For what it was, it was well made. I wept no tears when it left as a trade-in for an Integra for my wife but in the same circumstances I would buy it again….
It was Toyota cutting corners, they used some pretty light batteries in this era and actually do it to this day. it si not that uncommon to see them give up in as little as 2 years.
The Tercel I drove didnt have working AC it was there but didnt go but yes the interior was intact and the car is pushing 400,000kms, But as a cheap loaner or a shopping trolley its the ideal thing.
My wife and I called ours “Pitiful”. She drove it exclusively. Bought as an “executive” demonstrator (A Tercel? Executive? Oh, well.) new in 1987 with 5000 miles, this 4-door hatchback–yes, the rarest of all–truly was pitiful. As far as performance, anyway. That defective variable-venturi carb, which I never knew was defective (they all were that year), kept it pitiful. But it was bulletproof and she was in 2 minor bump-ups, one front (a traffic barrel) and one rear (a dump truck, and it wasn’t a hard hit), neither interfering with the integrity of the body. And it never left her stranded. She drove it 7 years, poor thing. Her, not the car…well, maybe a little of both. Got her into a ’94 Corolla after that, and it seemed like moving up to a real Lexus. Definitely NOT pitiful.
I always found these attractive. I cannot see one without remembering a new law school grad who came to work at my office around 1989-90. Her parents had bought her the car during law school. She was not a car person.
When the Tercel was maybe 5 years old it blew blue clouds out of the exhaust something fierce – I’ll bet she never changed the oil. She decided that it was a worn out POS. So what did she buy? Another Toyota Tercel, of course.
These are great-looking little coupes, inside and out. When I bought my first new car in 1989, however, I was still stuck in “buy ‘Merican” mode and didn’t even consider one. Now-me is judgmentally shaking his head at then-me. Even the top-trim model was a full grand less than what I paid for the Chevy I bought.
A new move by Toyota in a time which they had yet to build in Japan an exclusive North American body style. This is the first. Problem was, now Toyota has 3 small cheaper coupes; Tercel, Corolla SR5, Celica ST. Once the Corolla coupe went FWD in ’88, their sales fell off a cliff because the Celica wasn’t really much of a price jump, and not much better with content than a cheaper deluxe Tercel. This Tercel was the answer. Yet each year, price creep, and customer expectations were growing. Although insanely well built, and dead reliable, these did not sell all that well being so spartain. Toyota rectified the image problem with the next generation Paseo, and killed the North American Corolla coupe as a result. Much better idea, and sold internationally.
Incredibly durable cars*
*if you don’t live in the salt belt
But seriously, look at the quality of the upholstery and how it’s held up. These things are bombproof, and cheap/simple to wrench on.
My son Jerry’s first car was a blue 1988. Ran like a beast. Still has it today nearing 350,000 miles. Utah is wonderful.
I would love to find a 5-door hatchback version of this gen. That is not so easy to find anymore….
I need parts for my 1988 Terkel DX 2 Door just like this one.
Any suggestions as to where the best place to get them.
I need the rear bumper and Rock auto doesn’t sell that, just Brake parts and such.
Thanks
Chuck