Junkyard Find: 1976 Toyota Corolla Deluxe Liftback

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Junkyard Find: 1976 Toyota Corolla Deluxe Liftback

18 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin Having driven quite a few mid-70s Corollas (these cars were as commonplace during my early driving years as are second-gen Tauruses today), I have to say that they were painfully slow even by the tolerant standards of the Middle Malaise Era. However, they were also shockingly reliable by the era's standards, which means that these cars were still plentiful on the street until well into the 1990s. Since few outside a hard core of fanatics have shown much interest in pre-AE86 Corollas, these cars get scrapped as soon as something expensive breaks and/or the Rust Monster's bites get too large. Here's a Deluxe liftback that I found in a Colorado self-serve yard a few weeks back.

"A welded body, not a nuts-and-bolts body!"
05 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

This was the era of 5-digit odometers (I believe Toyota went to 6-digit units in the early 1980s), so there's no telling if this is a 90,278-mile car or a 590,278-mile car.
02 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

02 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

The interior is in pretty good shape, so I'm guessing this car has no more than 190,278 miles on the clock.
11 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

11 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

While the 1976 Toyota subcompact version of "Deluxe" seems laughably Spartan today, this car did have some features you didn't see on many cars in its cheapo price range.
07 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

07 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

Rear window defroster!
04 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

AM radio with slider-style tone and volume controls!
15 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

Most cars in Colorado don't rust much, thanks to the area's single-digit humidity, but Japanese cars of the 1970s were surpassed only by air-cooled Volkswagens in the "rust anywhere, rust everywhere" department.
12 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

12 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

It's possible that this car spent much of its life in the Midwest, but this Colorado dealer emblem says otherwise.
17 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

17 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

The liftback hatch made these cars excellent haulers.
19 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

That is, they were excellent haulers if you didn't have to move anything heavy… or carry passengers… or drive uphill. The pushrod 2TC was good for 75 horsepower, but it felt like less.
03 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

03 - 1976 Toyota Corolla Liftback Down On the Junkyard - Picture courtesy of Murilee Martin

If you had one of these in your 2TC car, you needed plenty of patience when negotiating freeway onramps or attempting to pass a slow camper in the mountains. Still, these engines were hard to kill.