The typical 80s vintage Toyota wagon is powered by a sub 2-liter inline-4 that barely puts out enough power to get out of its own way. There isn’t anything wrong with driving a slow car (I’ve had the pleasure many times myself!) but today’s Toyota wagon or Wagon is something of a Frankenstein. Power comes […]
The 8th generation Toyota Crown (S130) was introduced in 1987 and sold all the way through 1999 in sweet wagon form, but you wouldn’t know it on this side of the pacific. Apparently Toyota’s USA product planners thought we only wanted terrible front-drive economy cars and the few cool things they brought over here were […]
This next car comes as a tip from Matt C who writes; Remember the 1980s Japanese vans with the engine between the driver and the middle seat? Maybe not, but for $4000, you can remind the whole neighborhood of this era of oddities. This format quickly gave way to the easier to service and better […]
If you aren’t a fan of wagons…well then, I can’t help you, because that’s a personal problem. Wagons are awesome and JDM wagons with engines that’ll never be legal to drive within 500 miles of California are doubly awesome. This next car has a 1JZ which might be Federalizable or Californiable or whatever you need […]
This next car isn’t for the faint of heart. It features a garish paint job that will get you more attention than you might want. It does, however, have a 4-speed manual gearbox, and at least 3 of the gears function. Not bad for less than $2500. Find this 1993 Toyota Corolla Station Wagon offered for $2400 in Oakland, CA via craigslist. Tip from Matt V.
When this next car came into DT’s mailbox, I recognized something…and it wasn’t the car. It was the location. I’d seen this rooftop parking structure with another well preserved Japanese wagon…ahh, here it is; the ’89 Corolla All-Trac Wagon from a few months back. It seems we have a connoisseur on our hands. The seller is either an enthusiast who is thinning his collection, or a flipper who buys these things from grandma and then wheeler dealers them on craigslist for a tidy profit. Find this 1990 Toyota Camry offered for $5,700 in Los Angeles, CA via craigslist. Tip from FuelTruck.
This next car comes as a tip from Art C who writes: I’d rock it for a dd.. this will be around after the apocalypse, assuming that the apocalypse isn’t a giant road salt shaker. Yeah, this is indeed a strange daily driver…not that it is impossible to find 90s Corollas with a 5-speed, but as they always say; a stick in a wagon is better than a stick in the eye. Find this 1995 Toyota Corolla DX Wagon offered for $1500 in Newton, MA via craigslist.
The seller of this next vehicle describes it as “museum condition” which might be a bit of a stretch, because I doubt any museum would want an 80s Toyota Wagon…but now that I think about it, there was a Toyota museum next to the North American Torrance, CA headquarters that was filled with all manner of original Toyotas before they moved it to Texas and the Toyota Museum in Japan is filled with all sorts of strange stuff, so perhaps this does belong in a museum, but I’d like to use it to haul my kids around for a few hundred thousand miles first. Find this 1989 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Wagon offered for $8,500 in Long Beach, CA via craigslist.
The 8th generation Toyota Crown (S130) was introduced in 1987 and sold all the way through 1999 in sweet wagon form, but you wouldn’t know it on this side of the pacific. Apparently Toyota’s USA product planners thought we only wanted terrible front-drive economy cars and the few cool things they brought over here were badged as Lexus…and the Crown was saved for the JDM crowd. But, today is your lucky day because someone managed to get a 7 passenger rear-drive 1JZ-GE Crown Wagon all the way into Washington state. It looks cartoonish dropped on airbags, but undeniably cool. Find this 1993 Toyota Crown Wagon offered for $9,850 in Seattle, WA via craigslist.
This next car is described as one owner until 2015, but I don’t think it matters if it had 52 owners in the last 42 years, because it looks in amazing shape for what it is. There is a psychosis among certain car guys that a little old lady owned car is the best…but those owners are almost all middle aged guys who take nice care of their classics, so I don’t know why they obsess over grandma’s wagon. I’m not a therapist, but here we are again. Find this 1978 Toyota Corolla Wagon offered for $7,500 buy-it-now in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho via eBay.