Here's something I bought last week in an internet auction. It's a 1978 Toyota Corolla SR hardtop KE35. It is pretty much identical to my first car except for the colour (my one was red) and the Alloy wheels. It has had only 2 owners from new, the last one had it since 1980. It has travelled only 77,000kms. Cars like these are rapidly increasing in price these days as young guys looking for something different and cool are snapping them up. Finding an original low mileage 70's car is near on impossible now so when I saw this one I figured that it would probably be the last opportunity to own such a car for a reasonable price.
These Corollas were assembled here in NZ which is both a good and bad thing. The Aussie/NZ versions of this car were different from the US/Japan ones which had tacky interiors and hideous front and rear styling. We got nicer seats and carpets and proper chrome bumpers with out any of those silly rubber bits that were stuck onto the American ones. The down side is that they were assembled in a miserable place called Thames in a factory built from bits of pine trees and sheets of corrugated iron. The build quality was variable and the process for painting the cars produced here was abysmal and the cars started rusting from the day they rolled off the line. Be that as it may however, the Kiwi version is to my mind the prettiest looking Corolla ever made. The styling of the car is pure early 70's American . The roofline is Ford Torino as is the instrument cluster, the rear fenders and bootlid look like a 74 Mustang and the quarter windows and front grille are replicas of the Australian Ford Falcon XA coupe. The vents in the bonnet and the frameless doors are classic design features of the muscle cars from the US. The main difference between them is the matter of size. Being a sensible Japanese car its a lot smaller of course. The 3K engine is a mere 1200cc. There also little in the way of extra options....you have to change gear and wind up the windows all by yourself. So, it was a sensible car for the sensible man who wanted the look of a fire breathing muscle car but without the fuel bills and the parking hassles.
Thirty four years on and these cars still turn heads, all the more so now because there are so few left. This one is 100% original which makes it even more special. The interior is in mint condition and there is nothing missing or broken. There are a few minor rust sports and the paintwork needs some attention so I will probably repaint it later this year. At first I wasn't too struck on the green colour but it's growing on me and I will probably keep it that colour. As a coincidence this car has been living for 32 years at a house just down the street from the place where I worked when I had my first car. Getting into it and driving it past my old workplace was like being transported back to a time when I was 18. The sound and feel brought back so many memories. For that reason alone I feel it was worth buying this KE35 coupe for $3600....exactly the same price that I paid for the first one all those years ago! Spooky eh?
