Japanese cars were certainly “foreign” to Americans in the early 1960s. Worlds different than domestic cars of the era, it was hard to know whether to take the few Japanese imports seriously, or not. It was easy to overlook the tiny number of Japanese cars being imported to the US in those years, and the cars themselves were more likely to be considered competition for Volkswagens or Renaults rather than Fords and Chevys. Road & Track tested a Toyopet Tiara in 1960 — only its 3rd Road Test of a Japanese vehicle, and found the car a significant improvement from the previous two it tested just a few years earlier.
With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to draw comparisons with Japanese cars offered a decade or two later. The article mentioned “first rate” outside finish and a functional, orderly interior. Also noted was that consumer perceptions of Japanese-made products may be improving due to world-class cameras and other equipment then coming from Japan. Could world-class cars be far behind?
Details matter, and R&T noted that the Toyopet had the “best automotive ash tray,” due to its location high on the dashboard. Other details proved well conceived as well – both comfort and mechanical features – leading to a relatively pleasant driving experience.
The road test – positive, but not overly enthusiastic – concluded with a prophetic statement:
“The Tiara is, by far, the best automotive design to come from Japan
and is an indication of a determined plan
to capture a share of the world automotive market.”
However, the Tiara itself was a sales flop, selling fewer than 1,000 US units. It simply did not connect with the American car-buying public, even those inclined towards imported cars. But the Tiara’s historical relevance is not that it failed, but rather how Toyota learned from that failure. Toyota stopped Tiara imports, regrouped, and then re-entered the US market a few years later with the Corona (ditching the Toyopet name, too). The Corona compensated for Tiara’s shortcomings; it was quicker, more American-looking, and available with both an automatic transmission and air conditioning. From that point on, Toyota was on the path to success.
The Tiara can be considered an embryonic Toyota; it’s fascinating to study this review with the benefit of hindsight. But even the most visionary auto enthusiast from 1961 would never have dreamed that 3 decades later, the Tiara’s parent company would virtually command many important market segments and would then introduce a revolutionary luxury car. Even giants start out small.
● Tiara: Yet another variation of the Crown name Toyota likes.
● Rear quarter-elliptic springs?? Well, it was in good company with the Bugeye Sprite & golf carts.
● Japanese cars until recently usually have had prominent lighters & ashtrays, which I always imagined were put to good use by chain-smoking Salarymen.
We get lots of ex-JDM used imports and they all smell of cigarette smoke.
Not anymore – Mazda went PC with the current 3 which is annoying – I don’t smoke but an ashtray is nice for disposing of small bits of rubbish. Not possible anymore unless you have an empty cup in the cup holder.
Looks like a shrunken and slightly drunken Studebaker. (look at the side profile)
Toyopet. I dont think these dam Commy cars will ever catch on! .
I was thinking of a small Checker, but your post has me seeing the Studebaker too.
Simca V8 obviously…
I definitely agree with the review that the front view shares much with Opel.
Looking at the side profile, the Tiara is unusually slab-sided – probably to maximize cabin size in a small footprint.
Japanese cars are slab-sided because their tax classes for vehicles take width as well as length and engine power/displacement into consideration. Width is also a practical consideration as Tokyo streets are beyond narrow
I didn’t start reading Road&Track until 1968 so I have no idea if this write-up and it’s accompanying pictures are typical of this period. I say that because of several things: first, a test of another Japanese sedan is referred to by the term “the Datsun sedan”. With the Japanese penchant for auto names this relegates that Datsun to (near) “just another Japanese car” status.
Next, they describe the car, at least in the beginning, as being ordinary but go on to (almost?) gush about it like R&T currently does about the latest from Porsche. At the very least, the description of the Tiara’s steering response sounds somewhat dangerous.
Finally, as well as the front and rear suspension systems are described, pictures would have been so much better. I guess most car magazines back then were loathe to take chassis pictures?
Oh, and an instrument panel picture should have been included, too.
This review was not very comprehensive, and gave very little space to what it actually drove like and handled, and how the engine performed. But it’s the only one available and does give insight into a mostly-forgotten car.
I understand that, and I realize some car mags (Car&Driver comes to mind), even today, run short or even less than 1 page articles. But like I said, I wondered if this type of article was typical for that period. For what has been said on here about other road test articles, that perhaps they were paid for, I just wonder if this “treatment” as presented in this Tiara test was typical for ALL cars, all foreign sedans, or just cars from “new” to the U.S. manufacturers?
I’ve read a few Australian and British car magazines from the fifties. Generally articles in those days were more descriptive than critical, unless something was really bad. Even then you often had to read between the lines to pick up the criticism. I think they were very much aware of who provided the car for them to drive, and were polite because of it.
Not sure whether US mags were the same; good ol’ Uncle Tom McCahill perhaps excepted.
The objectivity of car magazines in decades past is a very interesting subject. I have accumulated lots of car mags from the ’40’s to date. I agree, their criticism was somewhat veiled and required some interpretation, when reporting on a specific model. Uncle Tom (Mechanix Illustrated) and Car and Driver were the exceptions, often using humor to propel the criticism for comedic effect.
Some articles were far more critical when they discussed concepts that covered many models. I recall a Car Life article from 1957 that harshly criticized many impractical styling features of 1956 and ’57 models, such as exhaust ports in bumpers, (rust) overstyled light lenses that were easily damaged, and virtually all wrap-around windshields (very expensive to replace, sometimes 10% to 15% of the price of a new car). These were criticisms that would never be leveled at a specific model in a review, but were fair game when discussed as industry-wide problems.
For some degree of comparison, attached is Motor Trend’s assessment of the same car in their April 1961 “Imported Car Issue – 95 New Cars for 1961.” I hope the scan can be read – mag is literally falling apart from age. A little more information about engine performance and emphasis on value for money (e.g., standard back-up lights – a big deal in 1961). These were brief summaries of each car rather than road tests and I assume were largely assessments based on information and data provided by the manufacturers as opposed to driving the car – although in some instances MT did have “foreign car” reporters in the field (but Europe but not Asia) at that time. In the same issue and category (economy) MT included the Datsun Bluebird – “Japan is is beginning to make its auto industry heard, and one of the voices is Datsun. Simple, attractive styling, sturdy construction, and good detailing mark the Bluebird…” Clearly many understood that change was coming to the automotive marketplace.
“Clearly many understood that change was coming to the automotive marketplace. ”
Don’t give them so much credit in retrospect. In the first place, this was Motor Trend, who has always had a history of saying something nice about every car that appears in the magazine. Read the following review of the Triumph Herald. It really makes it sound like a much better car than it actually was.
Nobody in 1961 expected anything out of the Japanese, an it was only covering their bets that reviews of Japanese cars weren’t saying what the reviewers were discussing after driving the cars. “That piece of crap? Who’s going to buy one of those, when you can get a good, quality Borgward if you’re determined to be weird?”
A wonderful parallel: I recently saw a short film covering the 1957 Catalina TT motorcycle race. This year was exceptional, because a couple of Japanese motorcycles showed up for the first time, and it was obvious that the film makers had never heard of any of them. They made a real big deal that one of the Japanese bikes came from a company that made pianos! By the end of the race (won by a BSA, if my memory is holding), said piano manufacturer’s bike had DNFed, and the film makers made a big deal of it, laughing all the way with, “guess we won’t be seeing them around again” comments.
The manufacturer, of course, was Yamaha. And we all know how they retreated back into piano-making after such an embarrassing failure. This was the real American attitude towards Japanese manufacturers of motor vehicles prior to 1965.
I was looking for an instrument panel shot too. In any write-up on any car it’s expected. The lack of a shot giving the reader a perspective from the driver’s seat almost says, “Hey, we don’t really expect you to buy or drive this thing anyway, we’ll just describe things to you”. Chassis shots may have been tough due to lighting and equipment. Who knows, maybe the film was compromised. But the article itself feels like filler, an accommodation. It’s so inconclusive that it pretty much says the car’s not as bad as they expected, but it’s nothing to write home about either. Doesn’t tell me too much.
That’s odd, now that I think of it. A photo would have saved them that laboured description of the switches.
A quick google image search turned up nothing either. If anyone has a dash photo, I’d love to see it. Got my curiosity up!
Earlier today I looked far and wide and came up with exactly nothing. Now I decided to look up a brochure and here it is: black and white but still there.
http://tocmp.org/toyopet/TT-02b.jpg
If you do a Google Images search of the Toyopet Tiara the pictures shown include about 3 different shots of the dash, though in RHD form.
Basically, the lower edge of the instrument panel has about 8 square/rectangular(?) white buttons in a horizontal row. Sort of like the radio station pushbuttons on an old car radio. They are arranged in 2 clusters of 4 buttons and the locations/functions are pretty much memorized, I would think, by the owners over time. At first, distinguishing one button from another would be EXTREMELY tricky.
Oddly, all the other switches, like the ignition have an almost “tacked on” look to them, like they weren’t part of the original design but added near the end….not quite an afterthought.
Still no idea what that odd sounding rear suspension locating system looks like, as there were no underbody shots to be found.
It seems like some R&T tests in the 1960s were very comprehensive, and some were very brief, such as this one. I also have a mid-60s R&T test of a Toyota sedan, and that one is only 2 pages long.
I agree that some details are conspicuously missing (2 full paragraphs detailing the suspension, but no details on the engine??), but when looking for original-source materials on a rare 55-year-old car, I’m glad to just get anything.
Then, as now, car magazine articles need to be read with a grain of salt, I suppose.
I think R&T had a good feel for the market then, and saw no reason to go into too much detail on something it viewed as more of a curiosity than as a car that would sell in any numbers at all.
This strikes me as an earlier parallel to some of the early Korean car road tests I read around the turn of the century. I particularly remember a road test of the Kia Sephia. My oldest kid was starting to ID cars as a toddler, and I remember trying to explain “don’t waste your time on this one, you will never see any Kias around here.” Oops.
I am particularly struck by Toyota’s decision to pull the car from the market rather than to try to keep shoving them on dealers. They knew that it wasn’t ready, and they played the long game by stopping before their reputation got ruined. Four years with nothing but Land Cruisers could not have been a picnic for the fledgling dealer network.
Didn’t Toyota sell some Crowns in the 1960s prior to importation of the Corona?
The did. Just exactly how many they sold in which years is a bit difficult to pin down. My understanding is that Toyota suspended passenger car sales in the US for almost two years (1962-1963, I think).
What I’ll never understand to this day is why the Crown never sold well here in the U.S.A. If nothing else, it’s similar in size to the Chevy II of the same vintage.
Because Toyopet was a complete unknown. With the Chevy II or the Falcon, you knew more-or-less what you were getting: A Chevy or Ford in a smaller package.
They came in sedan, wagon and in OZ ute naturally good cars actually the dearth of parts meant most of the examples Ive seen have been repowered with a Holden red motor, one I had a few rides in had the original Crown overdrive gearbox and a warm 186 Holden under the bonnet it went really well.
It can be hard to predict what will and won’t fly in the market. The first Kias were indeed spectacularly crappy. And yet, today, they’re a highly competent manufacturer with many desirable products. (Hyundai’s 1998 takeover did them a world of good, to be fair.)
Daihatsu, on the other hand, showed up with a very competent small car, an appealing mini-SUV, and the backing of corporate parent Toyota, and sank without a trace.
My first impression of a Corona in 1975 was that the driving experience was JUST RIGHT, and the experience for a casual mechanic doing a tuneup was also JUST RIGHT. Total attention to user convenience in both ‘rooms’.
This review leads me to think that the engine ‘room’ came first. The authors picked up the sense of comfort there.
But the driving ‘room’ obviously wasn’t finished yet. All of those identical pushbuttons labeled LH, LL, HL, HH, RL, RH, RL, HR, LR, RR. It probably seemed okay to the Japanese eye that comprehends fine ideogram details with no trouble, but it’s not so easy for our dull Romaji eyes.
The 1st few American-built cars I remember driving had what I thought (even back then) was a serious design flaw. The 54 Plymouth and all the 60s Fords I drove had round knobs for lights and wipers placed near each other but I guess the designers figured it was very important for all the knobs on the dash to look the same….even when they worked differently. By that I mean the wiper switch was rotated while the lights switch was pulled out for on and pushed in for off. Being close together meant more than once I pulled on the wiper switch when in a hurry and/or rotated the light switch….to no effect, when I needed the wipers to clear the windshield.
The 8 identical buttons on the Tiara sounds like a far worse design.
A lack of standardization of function is still an issue today, especially when it’s something that you shouldn’t have to look at. When going from my own Crown Vic to my wife’s Forte Koup, I often turn the lights on or off when I mean to turn on the wipers, as my car carries its wiper controls on the left (turn-signal stalk) and hers keeps the light controls there. My lights are a rotary switch on the dash, as the column selector for the automatic precludes a right-hand stalk.
8 identical buttons does sound like a poor design choice. I have enough trouble with the four identical rocker switches on the lower left of the Volvo’s dash, and they are all clearly labeled!
Our Ford L700 grain truck has identical-looking knobs for the lights, wiper, and lighter.
The Tiara took 20.7 seconds to get to 60mph, which may have something to do with its failure to catch on in the US in the late 50s/early 60s.
That was about what the Falcon did.
Although I’ve never seen a Toyota Tiara personally, I have read the vintage Road and Track Road Test article regarding the Tiara. Looking at the car, I was less than impressed with how it looked. By comparison, the Crown was better looking. I also found the later Corona more attractive than the Tiara.