After reading Paul Niedermeyer's (aka PaulN's) recent essay about the Corolla's 40th anniversary, it seemed only right for me to go with a Late Malaise Corolla for today's DOTS car. After all, the last generation of rear-wheel-drive Corollas really cemented Toyota's now utterly dominant reputation for reliability among North American car buyers, and sightings of these machines on the street have (finally) started to get somewhat rare.

Even after 26 years, this car doesn't look all that archaic. Nothing flashy, but also not Toyota Bland (the seriously bland Toyotas came a bit later).


Some of these cars are getting hooned drifted to death nowadays, but not in anywhere near the numbers of their younger AE86 brethren.


It's sad to think that we won't see many of these Corollas on the street in a few more years, as their engines all hit 300,000 miles and they get fed to the voracious jaws of The Crusher... and then only Bland Toyotas will remain.

Send an email to Murilee Martin, the author of this post, at murilee@jalopnik.com.