Over the past month, I’ve traveled far and wide in search of Curbside Classics. In December, I spent a long weekend in Colorado, and found this ’76 to ’79 Corolla SR-5 Liftback. Paul has already written up a similar car, but it is rare to find seventies era Japanese cars, and I bought a car very similar to this one as my first car. Besides, Paul’s find was a washed out orange-ish color, and this blue looks much better.
This generation Corolla came out in 1975, but did not offer this body style until 1976. Toyota’s initial 1975 model year offerings include a two-door sedan, four-door sedan and wagon, and a two-door sport coupe. In the fall of ’75, they offered two more models: this two-door liftback and another two-door sport coupe that shared its front sheet metal.
It was a bit confusing, but here’s a collage of all six models. The red four-door, yellow coupe, and green wagon pictures do not include US bumpers or trim, but trust me, all six were offered in the US from 1976 to ’79. Driveline choices included two engine and four transmission options (1200 4-speed, 1600 4-speed, 1600 5-speed and 1600 automatic). Throw in a couple trim lines for each body style, and you’re looking at the most complex product lineup offered in its class.
Here’s a better shot of that unique front sheet metal. Back when the new coupe and liftback came out, I preferred this clip to the original coupe. The regular coupe appeared unfinished around the grill and headlights, but this look provided a sheet metal panel to fill the joints between the parts. Back in the day, I heard a rumor that this sheet metal was shared with the Japanese market Toyota Sprinter. Thirty-eight years later, I can check that rumor using the internet.
Nope–as you can see, the Japanese market Sprinter used yet another clip, although it shared the same body from the A pillar back. I do enjoy the lower picture where the Sprinter driver demonstrates his reverse heel and toe method to the young lady. If you listen closely, you can hear him explaining the proper steering wheel grip: “Place both your hands at the twelve o’clock position. This gives you maximum leverage in decreasing radius turns!”
The liftback body received praise for its clean design, but a close look shows there’s still quite a bit of fussy detailing. The tail lights have ribs running across their face, two license plate lights extend from the body, and the bumper includes several caps, rub strips and over-riders. Still, for 1976 Japan, it’s a pretty smooth look (especially compared to the other five Corolla body styles).
I love how original and complete this car is. Those little stickers in the quarter glass were designed to help the dealer lot attendants quickly identify the features on the car. They should have been removed prior to delivery, and yet here they are, thirty-eight years later. Half the plastic drip rail trim didn’t fare so well, but it’s been exposed to the Colorado elements for almost four decades, so I can cut it a little slack.
The interior appears equally complete. Since this car is an SR-5, it would have come with: a leatherette shift knob and steering wheel cover, tachometer, clock, AM/FM radio (with sliding volume control knob), and an overhead console with map light and additional warning lights. The dash has a bunch of gauge openings and a fancy warning light panel, so it appears to be a proper SR-5. However, looking back at this time machine, it’s clear that the phrase “upgraded interior” had a different meaning back in 1977.
Well, a lot of things were different back then. As we say goodbye to this little blue liftback, I don’t mind telling you I feel a big wave of nostalgia. The first car I bought was a 1973 Toyota Corolla Sport Coupe (with 5-speed). While my ’73 was a previous generation model, it allowed me to spend many happy days buzzing around Denver in a car very similar to this one.
Thinking back, my high school Driver’s Education car was the coupe version of this liftback. At the time, I was one of the few students willing to drive a stick, so I gained more seat time in a Corolla. Hmmm, even more nostalgia. Thirty years later, my daughter is spending seat time in our Miata, learning to drive a stick.
In fact, the Miata also has a 1600 cc four, smooth shifting 5-speed transmission, and a small, light rear wheel drive platform. I hope my kid has as much fun running around town in our Miata as I did in that little Corolla Coupe!
I love that “Carpet” sticker on the side window to help the sale people. Reminds me of those Cal Worthington ads where he would call out the features in a long line of used cars. “Radio and heater” were always mentioned.
I have read that the catalytic carpet was only used for that one year. Owners complained that it gave off the odor of rotten eggs if it got exposed to fuel that might get tracked onto it from the driver’s shoes.
In europe this car made its debute in the englisch series. My father had 1 and my first experience , without a license, was very learning as this toyota was fast !! Later a bought a corolla k35 nice car but less power.
Wiel from holland.
Lancia HPE has disappeared from the roads here. Still see these around. Nice article, I love the white freakazoid Sprinter in the brochure.
Nice find. I remember seeing these around but they were not really on my radar in those days. We in the midwest preferred to stick to the proven quality of Granadas and Volares than to take a chance on those cheap little Japanese things. 🙂
LOL, nicely put. I had a high school friend with one of these. Even in bright yellow it was hard to find in the sea of ’70s “A” bodies in the parking lot of our Midwestern school.
Back in their day, these were ALL OVER coastal California to the extent that one could harly toss a stone without hitting one. Their “day” was quite long, too, due to their longevity.
However, this hatchback body style was really not roomy enough for people over 5′ 10″ tall; otherwise, I might have bought one. Datsuns at the time were generally a bit more accommodating for taller folk.
They were popular in the northeast too, but road salt brought the curtain down on their day a bit sooner here.
I wonder if the legendary Mr. K had anything to do with the extra room in Datsuns…
BTW, Yutaka Katayama is still alive, at age 104.
The blue one’s front end = 2015 Mustang
No, the blue Toyota front end is much more attractive than the 2015 Mustang front end.
Love the front end of these. And the whole design was head and shoulders above the bizarre stuff Nissan was turning out at the time.
One of the prettiest Japanese designs from the ’70’s. While it shows its vintage, it doesn’t look dated.
Nice find. I learned how to drive a manual in one of these, yellow with blotches of rust from Chicagoland winters, in 1988. I was a college freshman and it was my boss’s car. Very zippy and the clutch worked fine even after I submitted it to some learning curve abuse.
That blue is a lovely color and those stickers on the rear quarter window really impress me. They are a product of restraint. Who can resist peeling off a sticker for almost four decades?
It’s cars like this Corolla which built Toyota’s indestructible reputation. And being a conservative product, even for its time, there’s a distinctly American allure to it which undoubtedly pulled a lot of people out of domestic showrooms.
Great find.
“Who can resist peeling off a sticker for almost four decades? ”
The typical Toyota driver who views the car as an appliance, and never even notices them.
Although to be fair, this owner appears to be very good about vehicle maintenance.
I recall liking the looks of these in the 1970’s… but then the 1980-84 version that followed was even better.
I thought these did a nice job of taking up where the Volvo 1800ES left off, in 1973.
It is a cute babble of a car that appeals to a sense of fun within a market filled with cars preaching luxury and comfort. At a time when American car buyers wanted a break from the past, these little Japanese cars answered these calls.
But these little cars were not great. They had nothing remotely groundbreaking. Unlike Honda, Toyota and Datsun did not try to do FWD. There is nothing remotely new here except its size and country of origin.
For many today, these cars evoke memories of care free times. For those folks, please enjoy these cars from a distance because those memories will expire the moment you try driving it around.
That’s a great example of an almost forty year old daily-driver CC. I have a lot of personal history in Corollas of this vintage, and have written up much of it over the years. These were the gateway drug for many Americans, and their all-round excellence (for the times) hooked many for life on Toyota.
My BIL had a yellow Liftback like this one, and he kept it going well into the 90s. It was fun getting back into it to relive the memories, except for the low roof, that is. I’m in the camp of those that are glad cars have gotten taller over the decades
I took a very hard look at an SR5 Liftback in 78. Absolutely loved the engine, iirc a pushrod hemi. That thing was so smooth, whirred down the road effortlessly. The shifter had one non-feature: getting around the reverse lockout required pulling the lever up to get into reverse. While the angle would be ok in the right hand drive version, I was stuck pulling up and to my right, kinda awkward. What really sunk it though was, as others have mentioned, trying to get my 6′ self comfortable inside. I could lean the seat back far enough for a short hop, but wasn’t sure about longer trips. Ended up, unfortunately, going for a Mercury Zephyr Z7 instead….see the CC on the Z7 for that tale of woe.
I remember the Car and Driver test of the Liftback in 76. Started out with something like “to see the original first paragraph of this report, read the first paragraph of the Honda Accord test in this issue”. The Accord test started out something like “Once in a while a car comes along that is perfect for it’s time and place” C&D said it was no slight on the Liftback, as it was very impressive. Just that the Accord was even more impressive. iirc, C&D noted that the Liftback was indeed on the platform of the JDM Sprinter, slightly larger than the garden variety Corolla.
In 82, my Aunt wanted a car for puttering around town, instead of driving her van all the time. I towed her to the Toyota dealer to look at the 2nd generation Corolla Liftback….I didn’t fit in that one either.
She ended up buying the Mistu built Dodge Colt….nope I didn’t fit worth a hoot in there either.
This car sure looks good and I am surprised the paint is not more worn from those decades of Colorado sun. From spending time in Boulder about 5 years ago this Toyota also has a normal amount of rust for a vehicle of that vintage. I am going to assume those window stickers are on the inside since otherwise an ice scrapper would have removed them years ago and who knows, perhaps the owner wanted the dealer to leave them on. Am surprised the stickers have not faded or peeled off though.
Very few of those left here Toyota liftbacks were a favourite in NZ for years more so in Coronas than Corollas though despite the rust issues Kiwis kept buying them, and of course we have Sprinters in our national fleet the brand is still alive in Japan and we get thousands of used Jappas imported every year.
Those sold like crazy here in n.e. Ohio, alas, they were pretty much all eaten up by rust by their 6th birthday. In their defense they didn’t rust any faster than any of their domestic or European competition.
I don’t remember seeing many of these in eastern Canada at the time. My guess is that people whose budget was above bare minimum still leaned towards North American product. But I liked the practical size – and the more aggressive and confident styling – of this model, and of course the advantage of the hatchback format was a no-brainer.
Thanks for the primer on the body styles, which I actually had never sorted out. The first car I bought on my own was a used 1976 Corolla E-5, a silver hardtop fastback like the yellow example. As the years have gone by, I’ve occasionally wondered if I was confused on the model year, because other 76’s didn’t look like mine. Now I know.
At the time, I was proud of myself for being so sensible, the first in the family to buy a reliable Japanese car. What a pleasure to be rid of the broughamy 1970 Olds 98 I bought from my dad. Well, the Corolla gave up the ghost at 93K, while the Oldsmobile was seen running around the area for years, pushing 200K.
I bought a leftover 1978 Corolla SR5 liftback, orange with a black interior, new in January of 1979. A bit over 5 years and 70,000 trouble-free miles. A good car. Replaced it with a new 1984 Honda Civic sedan, which was a great one…14 years and 144,000 trouble-free miles, plus better gas mileage, better visibility and a roomier interior. Still, for its time, the Corolla was a nice piece.
A few years back a neighborhood dealership near a friend’s house in Lakewood / Bellflower, Ca. was selling one of these-, in that same shade of blue. They were asking $3K.
Some 15-20 years ago one of my uncles owned one of these. He changed the color from yellow to white with black pinstriping, and painted the factory steel rims pale gold ( this was back when gold-colored wheels were all the rage ) and it looked really sharp. It had over 100,000 miles on it and still ran like a top when his worthless ghetto skank of a second wife carelessly turned into oncoming traffic, totaling the car and nearly totaling the poor old man who she turned in front of. Adding insult to injury, SHE tried to sue HIM!
With the insurance money as a down payment, they bought a used, low-mileage SAAB 900 sedan, which was a can of worms from day one.
I still have a couple of BBC Rock hour concert performances of Elton John that I recorded onto cassette tape back in 1976 laying about. I remember during the recording of this 2 part show that I kept the tape running, Commercials and all.
The radio station I taped the concert from was WMMR FM out of Philadelphia. Some of the commercials included one of Steeleye Span coming to the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, another was Stephen Stills coming to the same venue. Al Stewart and his Year of the Cat was on sale at the record store nearest you…..
Oh, and a very annoying Toyota commercial with the jingle: ” You asked for it……….you got it!……….Toyota!” Then they extolled the virtues of this very car, followed by that jingle. For years, that little ditty would play in my head over and over. I even dare not break out those tapes today to relive old memories, in fear of reigniting that endless tape loop….”You asked for it……………You GOT IT!……….TOYOTA!” 🙂
In 1977 my dad was temporarily reassigned to the LA office of Litton from our German home. For a period of ten months, we had 2-door and 4-door versions of the Corolla; Hertz made us give it back every month for a new one, presumably for servicing. The neighbors thought we were nuts with a different colored brand-new Corolla every month. I still remember them and many of the trips we took all over the west on weekends fondly.
Later when we permanently moved here I learned to drive on an ’82 and also an ’84 Corolla in Driver’s Ed. Never owned one, but always liked them.
Typically, little Japanese cars aren’t my style but there’s something about the wagon version that has always been attractive to me.
When I was very, very young, my mother and father (at the time having recently junked the ’82 Chevette Scooter for an ’84 Honda Civic hatchback) had a young doctor friend, Jerry. Jerry drove the Corrolla wagon in yellow, I believe. He had actually purchased it when his previous car, a giant silver Cadillac inherited from his grandparents toward the end of medical school (he was enrolled there while my mother was in the school of public health, I believe), had proved too difficult to park on the street.
I think he and the wagon eventually moved out West, I’ve never seen him since those years, but I will always remember that little wagon. It seemed to say “newly minted graduate trying to make his way” all over it.
I’ve tried Japanese and Korean cars and now know that I don’t fit in almost all of them. An Avalon would be the only exception, but even a used one is too dear for my wallet.
We were in Hawaii in 1977, and rented two or three different 2-door versions of this car. On Maui we got up early and joined the Toyota Parade to the summit of Haleakala. Even back in those days I’m sure there were more rental cars in Hawaii – at least on the non-Oahu islands – than personally owned ones, and these Toyotas were definitely in the majority.
I see these around occasionally, often in this condition or better – if a car this old is still driving it is because it has been looked after. I didn’t know they had 2 different coupes though, and I also don’t think they sold the 2 door sedan here.
I guarantee the two door sedan was available- My brother in law drove a 3KC two door sedan for several years in the mid eighties.
WOW! What a blast from the past. I had a 76 SR5 hatchback, manual 5 speed, in a weird orangey-red color. Bought it with the re-up money when I was in the Army. It was a good,reliable car (compared to some of the U.S. made crap that was out there). The only problem I ever had with it was the clutch slave cylinder had to be replaced one time. Other than that I drove the piss outta that thing. The 1.6 liter hemi was a strong little engine and the 5 speed was a slick shifter. With the hatch.you could haul anything that would fit. One night a buddy crashed his bike on a back country road. After we hauled him to the hospital, we went back and stuck his mangled Kawasaki 750 in the back and took it to the shop. Somebody stole the car in the summer of 1980 and it was never recovered. It had about 135k miles on it with not much more than routine maintenance. Good times, simpler times.
My very first car……a 1977 British spec Liftback in Silver. Great memories…….wish I still had it !!!
My first brand-new car was a ’73 Corolla (1600 cc) I bought in April of that year (sticker price was $1700 – which I had in the bank, but Dad convinced me I needed to establish credit, so…. $65.24/mo for 18 months and I owned it outright.). Ten years later, a collision to the right quarter, and 80k miles on the odometer, my sister introduced me to a friend of hers that wanted to trade down to save money so I swapped her my car and $2K for her ’79 blue Corolla lift-back. Loved that car; drove it until I inherited my wife’s ”86 Camry (last car I ever bought brand new) in ’89. Would love to have another orange ’73, or blue ’79.
I bought a SR5 Lift back in September 1976. No doubt a great, reliable car. Loved it but to make peace with family in 79 traded it fora Ford Fairmont which was nothing but junk. Biggest car buying mistake I ever made.