The mid-1980s Toyota Corolla remains my favorite Corolla of all, as it combined the airy-glasshoused five-door version seen here, the rear wheel drive AE86 variants that were to become cult cars later on, the three-door hot hatch FX, and the previous-generation wagon that was dressed with a more modern look to survive until 1987.
Later Corollas were more rounded and more boring, but the five-door “Liftback” was a sharp box on wheels that found its way onto our driveway as well. There had to be a reason why I’d name it as my favorite, wouldn’t there?
The brochure car here bears “ZX EFI” badges, so it has the 1.6-litre 4A engine in fuel-injected guise, most likely in eight-valve SOHC configuration. If it were DOHC, there would be enormous decals on it celebrating the fact.
But what’s awesome is this interior shot: it shows you the Corolla was available with a space-age digital gauge cluster.
I’m not a fan of the striped upholstery, but otherwise the yellow Corolla would earn a place in my fleet any time.
Weekend Edition: 1983-1987 Toyota Corolla ZX EFI Liftback
By Antti Kautonen
Aug 29, 2015
By Antti Kautonen
The resident Finn of Hooniverse. Owns old Peugeots and whatnot, writes long thinkpieces on unloved cars. These two facts might be related.
Bradley Brownell
I borrowed a completely clapped out example once. It practically drove itself, as the transmission was just a soft mess of gears, the clutch went up and down by hint, and the steering was totally suggestive. Perfect!
My dad had a 1976 Aspen and traded it in for this venerable Corolla. We drove it hard from 1984-1992. There was a 3 month wait to get the package and color we wanted from Japan. It took a beating. The transaxle cracked in a pothole impact. The timing belt snapped about 5,000 miles before we wanted to replace itm There are times when I wished we had the 4WD Turcel wagon, but these pictures affirm this Corolla wasn’t bad at all. Good post.
We had a gold 88 Nova sedan with a 5 speed. The gold with the black trim made it look a bit more upscale than it was. With manual locks, windows and transmission, there wasn’t much upscale about it. But, it drove well and was generally reliable. It blew a head gasket at about 120K, but I think that was fairly common back then. We sold it not long after and bought a 92 Saturn SL2. We should have kept the Nova.
One of my great-aunts is still driving her (US market) ’88 Corolla FX 3-door, that she bought new to replace a 1st-gen Fiesta. Maybe an FX16 was hot, but her car was not.
(It looks almost exactly like this, except much more rusty, and it has lingering bits of a circumferential pinstripe on the level of the thin body-color strip that traverses the full width of the hatch.)
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/88ToyotaCorollaFX2jg.jpg