meh. I want to know more about the guy driving the 360. He seems to be living his best life. Read more

I totally support their (and other states) right to enact environmental laws above and beyond what the US is willing to do. Mainly because of bullshit like we’re seeing now. Read more

I love to give California shit for lots of things but they have unique challenges that other states do not have to deal with. Ocean adjacent with mountain regions creates for particular air circulation or sometimes lack there of, combined with shitty traffic and lots of cars in many cities. Fuck them for not wanting… Read more

They sure do and they seem to have coped with different standards in California perfectly well up to now, seeing as how said standards were as clear as any other.
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I think we found the 12 year old... or at least someone with the mentality of one.
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Damn this brought back memories. The very first car I drove was a 1982 tercel 4 door 4 speed. Everything I know now about driving I learned from thrashing and grinding that little car through the new Brunswick backroads, my dad hollering “Shift now! Gear down now! Brake now!” - my gangly 15 year old mind trying g to… Read more

Lots of similar stories here, but I’ll add some more props with another true tale of bulletproof construction. This was the family car of my best friend in elementary school and they put well over 200k on it without so much as touching anything other than regular maintenance—no alternator, no starter, nothing. The… Read more

VERY interesting! I’m old enough to have driven 1st gen Tercels, Civics and so forth and it’s hard to explain how interesting and revolutionary they were without doing the whole “back in my day” thing. You’ve done an admirable job of that here. Read more

Thank you for this intetesting and well written article. The humble Tercel  deserves all our cheers. In 1993 I bought second hand FWD 1983 model ,5 doors and run 1300 cc 3A engine mounted longitudinally. It is the only such an amzing car that you feel like driving a RWD comfortably in mudy road and crossing a running… Read more

That was back when Toyota has some brilliant and hungry engineers designing their rides. The sheet metal, not so much, but the drive train made me, a guy grown up in a Chevy-or-walk family, quit the church of Northern Michigan and turn traitor. My first was one of those deals too good to pass up. A three year old… Read more

I had a 1982 yellow hatchback SR5 for my first car and I absolutely loved everything about it. Sadly I wrecked a fender and bumper doing teenage shenanigans and couldn’t afford to fix it. So I sold it to a local rancher who didn’t much care about the damage and lo and behold it showed up at my work every week for a… Read more

My first car was a 83 Tercel, I drove it like a rally car, took it mudding and off roading. It never failed to start and always got me home. I miss Pepe, my little mule. Read more

It was excellent, keep it coming! Read more

Keep writing stuff like this. Interesting things about otherwise mundane looking cars are awesome! Read more

It’s pieces like this that keep me coming back to Jalopnik. No one else does stuff like this, and it’s what appeals to me the most. Thank you for a well thought-out, well-written, informative, and above all enjoyable piece.
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Let’s not forget those special editions... Read more

Your snow trip would have been a lot easier in one of the next Generation Tercel wagons.

The best thing about the Gen 1 Tercel was the transmission only needed a simple power take off lever and a corolla rear end to become this. (Toyota also put an extra low gear available in 4wd only to make it a 6 speed). They then…

Yes it did, but the object was to remove the top half as a whole and never mess with those things. The problem for many people back in the old days is that one or the other of those switches would fail, and you had to buy a whole new top half for $300+ . Ours also had a bad transmission from the dealership that they… Read more