Chaser Avante Lordly? The mind boggles. At Toyota, a group of serious guys (in ‘80s Japan, it would almost certainly have been only guys) wearing three-piece suits and considered valued members of society, gathered in a meeting room to workshop a new series name for one of their highly prominent automobile ranges, and they actually came up with that. And their boss, as well as that boss’s boss, thought that was great.
The bind moggles even more. Another group of serious, suit-wearing folks designed badges – one that said “Avante” in italicized cursive, the other spelling out “LORDLY” all-caps and in gold – and stuck those next to each other on the trunk lid and thought “Yeah, that’ll do.” And the funniest bit of it all was that, indeed, it did do. To be entirely fair, the Lordly name was also used on the previous generation Chaser. And on the next one, too.
So one must figure that, back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, legions of serious and fully clad Japanese (most of them, anyway) citizens visited their local Toyota Auto Store, to check out the new Chasers. Hey, it was the go-go ‘80s-slash-’90s after all, money was piling high in the savings accounts and it was about time to trade in the old car for a new one.
A new Chaser – now that’s an alluring proposition. The higher trim Avante, with the 150hp DOHC 2-litre straight-6? With the special edition Lordly package, including Super white body colour, alloy wheels, a digital speedo and a great sound system? Tempting…
“Do I want doilies?” wondered our putative Japanese Chaser client. “Of course I want them. How could I live without them? Give me those doilies. And make the velour brown, please. Brown is so soothing.”
And so the dealer obliged and fit a set of doilies that helpfully spelled out “Chaser” on the brown velour seats, both front and back.
Sign the dotted line? Well in Japan, you don’t sign things, you stamp them. Everybody owns a set of stamps with their name on it, and important documents are always stamped in red ink. So some serious person, back in 1990, stamped the dotted circle, and got this Lordly presence in their life. And probably a five-year payment plan.
But what’s five years when you can keep the thing on the road for over three decades? Just keep petrol in the tank and air in the tyres, and this Chaser will go Avante forever. In a Lordly sort of way.
In the X80 family, the Mark II was the popular one (about 850,000 sold by 1993), available in both standard saloon and so-called hardtop version. The pillared Cresta was the one with delusions of deluxury, and that generation garnered over 350,000 sales. For its part, the “hardtop” Chaser was the sporty spice of the girl band. Toyota sold just under 300,000 of these Chasers. But the Lordly ones were only a small fraction of that.
Now that we’ve seen all three variation on this particular theme, perhaps we can focus on other generations of Toyota’s iconic X platform. The problem is finding them – the X80 sold so well and is still so present today that it eclipses other generations, especially the older ones. Even standing still, the Lordly moves in mysterious ways.
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CC Capsule: 1989 Toyota Mark II Grande (X80) – Onwards And Eastwards, by T87
Generally speaking, I’ve always been fascinated with the fact that most (if not all) domestic market Japanese vehicles have been named with English language words written with English characters. I never really understood why they didn’t use Japanese names written in Japanese characters.
But at least in some cases, the names sound like they were given by people with a limited understanding of English, or maybe even none, and using a Japanese-English dictionary.
I like this. But I wonder how much sake was involved in the naming decision?
Engrish is a strange phenomenon. It’s been going on for 65 years with no improvement in semantics.
At first it may have been a sly way of mocking the MacArthur occupation forces. But since 1980 Japan has been the occupier, so the mockery may have a different flavor now.
More recently Toyota and others have taken to retreading badges from the past a mates daughter has a Toyota Isis, once a British Morris badge and Toyota Vanguards are quite common now Standard Triumph no longer uses it, since they export a lot of used cars to here reading car badges stuck in traffic here can be quite entertaining.
Isn’t this just another form of the Cressida? Which was also just the forebear to the Camry?
Anyhow, I always thought it was quite silly how the Japanese brands would have so many badges and names attached to the back/sides of their cars. Subaru was one of the worst, but they all did it. Some cars would have “automatic” along with a trim along with the car’s name along with the engine designation. In all, some cars back in the 80’s would have up to 5 different things stuck to the trunk. Imagine a little Subaru with this:
Subaru. Forrester. Automatic. GL. Fuel Injection. AWD. 1.8L
All on the back! haha.
I’ll just leave this here for you, then, shall I?
Holy cow! That’s funny. Thanks Daniel for the laugh.
The Cressida (a rebadged Toyota Mark II) was the next size larger than the Camry, and RWD with an inline-6 using basically the same running gear as the Supra.
So that same generation Supra 1982-86 in essence practically used the same chassis platform as the 1981-84 Cressida/Mark II Sedan? I guess same can be said as the same era 1G Soarer because after the 1977-80 Cressida/Mark II was redesigned in 1981, the coupe version was no longer available and the styling of the Soarer had too much resemblance to the Cressida so it must be the coupe version which replaced the 1977-80 Cressida/Mark II Hardtop coupe.
There are some differences between the Soarer and this Gen Mark II. The Soarer closest to this car was released in 1986, while the X80 was released in 1988. So The X80 benefited from the Soarer’s styling. There are some differences though. X80 had Mcpherson Struts in front, while Soarer had Double A Arms. Next, the front and rear glass was much more sloped on the Soarer, while on X80 they are more upright.Lastly, IIRC the weight distribution on a Soarer was 54:46 , the X80 58:42.
Thanks for posting it. It´s a really handsome car. The front is very rigorously styled: parallel lines and nothing else. Wow.
Can anyone explain the small step where the base of the side glass turns to flow into the base of the windsceen. The last Audi 80 did it (1991-1996).
I would watch a YouTube channel devoted to playing Japanese jazz-funk on the stereo of one of these Lordly Vants
More badges and longer name=more status and luxury.
Cadillac did that back in the day, Calias was base, Sedan DeVille, then Fleetwood Sixty Special or Fleetwood Brougham. Or Fleetwood Brougham D’elegance. The longer the name, the more you paid.
Dodge kind of does the same thing with their pickup trucks. Depending on year/trim there can be 3 or 4 badges stuck to that front door/front fender area. More badge=more status lol
I am stunned at how good looking this Toyota is. That sheer look hood cribbed right from the Seville, the sporty squared off body like a Maxima, and those panel gaps are absolutely flawless. A beautiful pre-Lexus Toyota 5-series. And the name is even good, if you stop at Chaser Avante.
From that sweet spot in Toyota design language evolution between the earlier “box it came in” and later “shapeless blob” eras, it seemed everything they made during this mid-’80s/early-’90s period had a certain refined, tasteful, lean and balanced elegance to it — maybe not knockout-fancy by any means, but painstakingly detailed little gems with nothing unresolved or out of place, and a common theme of looking as if they were whittled down from an extruded ingot matching the cross-sectional profile at the B-pillars.
The consistency and continuity of this language across models for nearly a decade suggests a particular eye at the helm firmly guiding the process, with a sensibility informed by rational industrial design principles more than fanciful automotive styling expression; whomever that unsung hero may be, I salute them and lament their apparent departure from the industry.
Nicely said!
Yes, agreed. I´ve thrown out all the tedious preconceptions I grew up with. Japanese design has some misses and clunkers, like every regional culture. It also has a remarkable number of oustanding creations that don´t outstand because they get lost in the torrent of creativity. I think if I went on a walking tour of Tokyo I´d not get more than a few kilometres per day because I´d be stopping so frequently to be amazed, entertained and astonished by the sheer variety and frequent brilliance of the vehicles just parked up. I might faint.
It’s probably a name that makes perfect sense in an aspirational sort of way – in the Japanese language and culture. Like the Suzuki Esteem.
Lovely-looking car.
Interesting vehicle. Also interesting is that Japanese still use personal stamps/ seals for important documents. I found this image of Hirohito’s signature along with Hanko stamp on the surrender agreement. Very interesting.
“a new series name for one of their highly prominent automobile ranges”
Was that an intentional reference to Toyota’s Camry Prominent?
No worse a name than the far more popular (and renowned) Nissan Fairlady. Though grammatically it is odd; most names (like Fairlady) are nouns, perhaps some are adjectives, but presumably “Lordly” is an adverb.
I’d sooner have a Chaser Avante Lordly Twin Cam than an MXR6T3-A EQ-TEC GLX 16V DOHC.
(…or an ETC…)