10th Oct 2011, 08:49

I think this is related to whether you see your car as an important investment, or a commodity that you simply drive to the ground and then discard it. Most Corollas were in that category, and hence, were put off the road after maybe 15 years of hard use with often 200 or 300 K miles on them. Compare that to the little old lady driving around in her always garaged Cadillac with maybe 40 K miles on it, even after 20 years. Does that make the Corolla less durable car? Not necessarily so. If the Cadillac had had the same abuse, it would have been a wreck unless being picked up by a enthusiast having it as a classic car, babying it.

You see many old cars from GM, Ford, Chrysler? No way you are! Count 100 cars at the interstate and 99 of them will be newer cars. Or even 100 out of 100. There simply aren't many old cars around in everyday use. This is simply not true, regardless of make or origin.

10th Oct 2011, 10:39

Once more, when it comes to this topic, using really generic terms like Import and Domestic means nothing. We're talking about individual companies making individual models. Using broad terms is not really useful. Something that so happens to be made domestically is not automatically better or worse, just the same as something that's made overseas is not better or worse. It's just that for the most part, Honda and Toyota, and to some extent Nissan - 3 individual companies - have made better automobiles than the US Big 3. That these threads are routinely argued over by die-hard domestic car maker fans, is to me proof that this is true, because even they know that it's true, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to defend the notoriously poor quality of their cars.

Also - I've traveled across the country numerous times, and there's a huge amount of 70's-early 90's Toyotas and Hondas on the road. I don't need proof.

10th Oct 2011, 10:57

So how many Toyotas made from the entire 70s decade do you see at all? Rather that just indicate all the Celicas, let's include all the 70s Corollas that were everywhere. Include any 70s Toyota cars you wish. I don't see even one. Even Skylarks and LeMans for example easily fetch twice their price new, and they are nice driver quality ones, not even Super Sports, GS, GTs etc. Then you are in the 30-100k range for nice ones.

I think my 70s Toyotas were disposable, rusted out, burnt oil, and not deemed collectible or worth saving

11th Oct 2011, 08:56

10:39 is very broad based and generic as far as comments, and yet again the 90's comes up. Specifically, what and where do you see what specific 70's model made by Toyota? The point is that there should be a minimum of one or two from the thousands of Toyotas in the 70's just in my large city alone. I see basic early 70's domestic models such as Cutlass, LeMans, Skylarks, Chevelles, Mustangs on the road today. Go to Carlisle Pa. sometime and see thousands of many different domestics models, even prior to the 70's, in great abundance. And they are very valuable today; far more than they cost new. Carlisle Pa and Hershey Pa as well are some of our biggest. GM, Ford, Mopars, Buick, Olds etc have dedicated appearances. You can wear a pair of shoes out walking through the rows upon rows. All the Toyotas from 1970 to 1980 end date, where are they? Sure you should see some 90's as that's not a big claim. Anybody see any Toyotas in any great #s crossing the Barrett Jackson or Mecum auction block lately? I think they were simply just a basic car, worn or rusted out in the 70s, and have left the scene.

11th Oct 2011, 10:54

The question about how many 70's era Toyotas being seen on the roads has been repeatedly answered and seemingly ignored. The truth is that I see MANY on the road, and unlike Big 3 cars of that era, which are usually babied, restored, and garaged by their boomer-era owners trying to recapture their youth by paying 10's of thousands of dollars for gas-guzzling monstrosities, the 70's Toyotas I see are still being driven as daily drivers - albeit dented and definitely abused and abused. Just on my street alone there is a '75 Toyota Corona, a 70's era Datsun, and tons of early 80's vintage Toyota and Honda cars and trucks.

It's also been conveniently ignored by those trying to make the same anti-Toyota argument, that in the 70's the Big 3 owned over 90% of the US market, meaning that the Big 3 Japanese automakers, when combined with the other imported brands like VW, Mercedes, BMW, etc etc owned way under 10% of the US market. So in the 70's there was a tiny fraction of Japanese cars in the US compared to today. So the fact that you see as many 70's vintage Toyotas and Hondas still on the road today is absolute testament to their quality.

But taking this even further, the 2 best-selling cars in the US in the 80's-early 90's was the Honda Accord. You still see TONS of these on the road today, and in many cases they even still look new. Same goes for Camrys and Corollas - and no - the argument that these companies somehow make worse products today won't stick, because I've heard this same weak argument for decades, and yet these cars just last and last and last. People said this about my 16 year old Toyota truck when it was new. I still have it. Guess they were wrong. But in any regard, we're talking about cars that are now over 20+ years old still being driven as everyday drivers. It used to be that once you hit 100k, your car was done. It's nothing for a car these days to go for 250,000-300,000 miles, and that came mainly from the bar being lifted by the Japanese big three.

11th Oct 2011, 18:41

My area of the country has a huge number of 70's and 80's domestics. Most are full-sized GM, with a few 70's LTD's here and there, plus a number of Granadas and Mavericks. In my neighborhood there is a '76 Pinto and a '76 Chevette. I drive the interstate daily and never see any Japanese cars from the 70's, and very few from the 80's. They just don't last that long. The bodies generally had little or no rust-proofing, and rotted away after a decade or so.

Many people fell for the myth that Japanese cars were somehow "better", but that was never true and certainly can't be considered true any more. Every day I read new rave reviews about Ford and GM products, while Toyota and Honda continue to decline in sales. I think it took the Toyota recall fiasco and Honda's disposable transmissions to wake the American people up. This year to date, GM has sold 50% more cars in the U.S. than Toyota. It's about time.