1979 Toyota Tercel SR5 Examined: An Econobox with Main Significance

From the January 1980 subject of Automobile and Driver.

Ask your self this: If the world’s finest­promoting automobile had been rolling neatly off your meeting line into the keen clutches of hundreds of thousands of pleased prospects every year, would you gamble success and play the market with a very new and totally different car? Say no and the competi­tion will grind you below its front-wheel drive and spit you out flatter than a sail kitty. Say sure and also you’re confronted with one of many all-time hardest dilemmas of the auto biz: the right way to construct a greater (learn, extra profitable) Corolla.

Toyota definitely mulled this very downside over because the outdated Corolla steadily edged towards obsolescence yr after yr. However two power crunches and a decade of raging inflation have stam­peded loads of consumers again to fundamentals, making the Corolla extra widespread than ever within the course of. It grew to become the Bee­tle of Japan with virtually no assist from the engineering division—a universally acknowledged benchmark of primary transportation.

Leaving the Corolla alone all these years gave Toyota two distinct advan­tages: loads of time to plan a brand new one, and loads of justification for ready one other yr to thrust it upon the world. Now that the day of reckoning has lastly come, it is apparent what a dilemma Toyota’s gone via. Final yr’s Co­rolla is nicely and really gone, however now there are two replacements to fill the outdated woman’s sneakers. Apparently the cut up be­tween standard and front-wheel­-drive forces runs deep via Toyota Metropolis, as a result of each factions have suc­ceeded in bringing a brand new Corolla to market. The front-engine-rear-drive model requires no explaining; it is the identical Corolla that is been such successful in steno swimming pools and with high-school sen­iors over time, repackaged with a bunch of enhancements. The Corolla Tercel on this take a look at is the antithesis of these diehard traditions. It might look bizarre, however it’s the primary Toyota designed to be the absolute best financial system automobile in­stead of simply one other miniaturized American sedan.

Earlier than we dig deep into the Tercel’s soul to learn how it was all accomplished, take into account just a few bottom-line details about this automobile. In stripped-down, twelve-inch­-tire, rubber-floor-mat trim, it is the most cost effective Toyota cash should purchase, in truth the second-cheapest new automobile in Ameri­ca, at $3698. The Tercel can also be Toyota’s fuel-economy star, racking up 29 to 33 miles for each gallon (relying on transmission) in EPA exams. Loads of technical sophistication has been inbuilt: a brand new overhead-cam engine, entrance­-wheel drive, and all-independent sus­pension. And although the Tercel is the smallest Toyota on the surface, it is larger than the largest in a number of key dimensions inside.

Whereas the Tercel’s seems are “distinctive” in a method that may take greater than the same old quantity of getting used to, you possibly can love the laborious components below its unusual pores and skin proper off the bat. Subaru, Honda, and Datsun all struggled via fairly depressing first makes an attempt at front-wheel drive, however Toyota has left its false begins within the lab. The Tercel is a front-wheel­-driver that works, additional justifying the “last-out, best-dressed” technique. The steering feels rear-wheel-drive “nor­mal”: There is not any torque steer, not a lot understeer, and simply sufficient lift-throttle oversteer to maintain laborious drivers amused. Oddly sufficient, there’s not a lot evi­dence within the {hardware} to counsel how all this was completed. The entrance suspension is a standard MacPherson strut design, the again wheels cling from an iso­lated crossmember on pure trailing arms, and the engine is true the place you’d anticipate finding it in a rear-driver. Although the remainder of the world’s carmak­ers have nearly universally accepted the Alec Issigonis system (1959, Austin Mini) of transversely mounting the en­gine to drive the entrance wheels via a transverse transmission, Toyota’s gone its personal method with a resolutely fore-and-­aft design. The engine is merely elevat­ed just a few inches to make room for a dif­ferential mounted below the number-­4 cylinder. This makes the transmis­sion a fairly weird, four-shaft affair that takes energy in on the high, turns it round inside, and spits it out under into a reasonably standard hypoid differ­ential. A pair of half-shafts run energy out to the entrance wheels.

Toyota claims that serviceability was the prime motivation for this vertically stacked powertrain. It is true that spark plugs and ignition elements are easi­er to get at than if they’d been squeezed between a transverse cylinder head and the firewall, however the actual rea­son is extra seemingly a easy case of economics. The Tercel’s components are much more like rear-drive elements than they might be if the engine had been turned 90 levels within the automobile, and due to this fact considerably cheaper for an old-line, rear­-drive builder like Toyota to instrument up for. Because it seems, this does penalize the design considerably. Jacking the engine up within the automobile to clear the drive elements hurts each dealing with (greater heart of gravity) and gasoline financial system (a taller hoodline is important to clear the en­gine, barely rising aerodynamic drag and gasoline consumption). However the strangest sacrifice of all is Toyota’s use of a hypoid-bevel-gear final-drive within the Tercel. Engineers like to keep away from this energy waster if in any respect attainable. (GM an­nounced that eliminating a 90-degree switch of energy with the X-car’s aspect­winder design improved general efficien­cy by Three %). Hypoid bevel gears initially got here into widespread use as a result of they permit an offset between enter and output shafts, facilitating a low drive­shaft tunnel in rear-drive automobiles. The pen­alty is plenty of sliding friction, which most FWD designers up to now have been all too pleased to get rid of. We will solely guess that Toyota swallowed the hypoid capsule within the Tercel as a way to use just a few extra components (or tooling) that already existed.

There’s one final large plus in Toyota’s favor within the nice East-West-versus-North-South engine-layout debate. With the transmission the place it has finish­ed up within the Tercel, the shift linkage is brief and candy. Whereas automobiles just like the Rabbit have what seems like an Erector Set below the hood to bell-crank movement from a distant shifter to the transmis­sion, the Tercel has one extremely polished shaft sliding easily inside an alumi­num casting. You do not have to be a safecracker to really feel all of the snicks and clicks that Japanese transmissions have been so good at delivering over time; a lightweight flick of the wrist produces the appropriate gear each time.

The slick-shifting transmission is among the few traits which were saved from outdated Corollas for the brand new Tercel. In distinction to the dark-tunnel temper of the outdated automobile, the brand new inside is as vivid and ethereal as a cellphone sales space. The material-cov­ered bucket seats in our top-of-the-line SR5 take a look at automobile are a brand new report obtain­ment for Toyota. They’re firmly pad­ded and formed to suit an individual’s again­aspect. The lateral-support cushions might use some plumping up and the recliner mechanism is a little bit coarse in its regulate­ment, however in any other case, these seats are prepared for lengthy bouts on the street. The again bench is undoubtedly one of the best rear seating Toyota has ever constructed right into a automobile with fewer than 4 doorways. Two six­-footers match comfortably with room to spare, and the backrest is cut up to maxi­mize potential combos of individuals and cargo.

Colour coordination guidelines the inside decor. Razzmatazz is fortunately at an all-time low, so you actually get the sensation you are in a pleasant, easy automobile and never a Japanese pachinko parlor. The instru­mentation is neatly arrayed inside the visible bounds of the steering wheel. Readouts are extremely telegraphic, and di­rectly illuminated at night time with gentle, white mild. The A/C gear is inte­grated into and hidden behind the instrument panel, so no heart console is important to cowl plumbing and take in legroom. Two issues do stand out of their absence: there isn’t any dock and never a single gimmick within the gas-flap-release, trunk-opener, and rear-window-flipper ilk that just about all new Japanese automobiles have spoiled us with these days. The Tercel comes straight. What Toyota’s accomplished is sacrifice gimmicks and likewise conference­al attractiveness to construct a fairly uncon­ventionally roomy inside. Wheels are relegated to the far corners of the automobile, and the roof is sort of so long as the wheelbase. The plan went awry on just one depend: what’s left after 4 passen­gers are seated is extra like a golf bag than a steamer trunk. The cargo maintain’s opening is small and waist-high, and the area accessible is sort of as deep as it’s lengthy and extensive. So suppose not of the Ter­cel as a mini station wagon, however extra as a Scirocco with headroom.

Simply do not let your ideas be swept away with desires of Scirocco-like speediness. The Tercel is sluggish, in truth downright turtle-like, the way in which Corollas have all the time been. Our take a look at automobile by no means noticed the blurry aspect of 85 mph, and churning as much as 65 mph within the quarter-­mile took greater than twenty seconds. Little question this has purposely been designed in so Corolla prospects will not miss all of the gasoline stations they will be driving by.

The Tercel does break with boredom in dealing with. Flip the wheel and it expenses after apexes with a vengeance. There’s much less understeer than Toyota’s ever dared to construct into its sportiest Celicas, and when you’re keen to horse round with the throttle and steering wheel, you possibly can produce fairly a pleasant sideways view of the world within the Ter­cel’s windshield. The steering is a little bit wooden-feeling at occasions—too sluggish, a bit too heavy, and barely numb to the contact—however any front-driver that may be cajoled into oversteer is all proper by us.

The Tercel does have one power that supersedes dealing with, nevertheless: It is already promoting like loopy. The Toyota vendor up the block from us is offered out for six months. By now the phrase is out that Toyotas do not break down each time it is raining and also you occur to be late for work. Moreover, recession consumers are checking window stickers first and worrying later concerning the bizarre taillights and the truth that a Tercel seems nothing in any respect like a roadgoing rapier. Its 29–33-mpg EPA ranking has the uncanny capacity to lash out and snag harmless prospects proper off the sidewalk. The massive 5 (and infrequently a 4, or perhaps a three) subsequent to the greenback signal has them reaching for a checkbook earlier than the salesperson even utters “front-wheel drive.” All as a result of the Tercel does ex­actly what the world’s-best-seller Corol­la did. It retains the fundamental in primary trans­portation.

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Counterpoint

It took Toyota a bunch too a few years to get into the front-wheel-drive enterprise. Pretty much as good a primary transportation module because the Corolla has been, it has been exhibiting its technological staleness from the mo­ment the Rabbit and its string of copiers confirmed up. However now there’s the Tercel with its distinctive front-wheel-drive engine­-transmission structure, its bizarre styling, and its wheels-at-the-far-corners chassis—its personal formulation for achievement. And that is what I am predicting for it. A number of big large piles of success. The Tercel goes to be simply good for umpteen 1000’s of consumers who’re searching for small and low-cost and financial system and could not care much less about the rest. Fanatics might be trying elsewhere. Just like the Corollas earlier than it, the Tercel is about as thrilling as mould. However actually good mould, thoughts you. —Mike Knepper

Toyota’s success is the results of constructing one good automobile after one other. Not nice automobiles, not thrilling automobiles, not automobiles bursting with character—simply good ones. I am unable to consider a Toyota I’ve ever pushed that was horrible—or one that actually rang my chimes, for that matter. The Tercel isn’t any totally different; there’s nothing dangerous about it.

If Toyota had mentioned the Tercel was the following technology of rear-drive Corollas, I may need been fooled. It has no nasty fwd manners, no tough edges, and it goes about its enterprise nearly unnoticed­—extra like a journey equipment than a automobile. It has the type of energy and room and trim you’d count on in a low-roller econobox, and appears nicely price its value. Most of all it is acquainted, one other middle-of-the-road, sturdy, economical, dependable, well-built Toyota sedan—solely with entrance drive.

Which is why I do not count on anybody to be shocked or dismayed or thrilled or as­tounded by the Tercel. However I do count on huge hordes of mileage seekers to suck up each Tercel that lands right here. And I count on they will prefer it simply positive. —Wealthy Ceppos

Properly, buddies, with this Tercel I believe Toyota has hit the economy-car nail smack on the top. It’s not spectacular­—financial system automobiles do not have to be, remem­ber?—however it does all the pieces you might fairly request of it. I discover it very comfy, and ensconced behind the wheel I can see all of the gauges and contact all of the controls with out having to maneuver one tiny little bit within the pleasantly plaid seat. There are good, large home windows throughout to look at the surroundings stand up, slip by, and fade away. In again is sufficient automobile­go room to pack dwelling an workplace chair—I attempted it—and beneath a neat and tidy impartial rear suspension that con­tributes to a surprisingly good experience. The engine will not ravage a lot asphalt, however it’s responsive and keen and appears hap­pily freed from a lot of the buzzings, thrash­ings, and dronings so typical of the species econoboxus. I do not know if you’ll ever fall in love with this automobile, however I am cer­tain you will all the time prefer it. For a wallet-sav­er, what else is there? —Don Fuller