Wish Toyota Would Make Another Tercel Type 4wd Wagon

Bought one of these new back in 1984, cheap, reliable great gas mileage (35 MPG highway).

Only options I bought were A/C and radio. Cost next to nothing back then, and you couldn't kill it. Had a primitive 4wd system, owners manual said not to use it on hard surfaces, but it was on the fly so easy to put in or out for gravel, snow, rain, etc. Not very powerful, 1450cc engine, but you could speed with no problem.

Small and light, but would go through a couple of feet of snow, and even used it on sand dunes.

Body died long before the power train, which had a couple of hundred thousand miles on it.

Wish they'd build another small, light, and cheap 4wd wagon like that.

had the fwd version
loved it, big enough to sleep 2

I bought this a couple of years ago from another inmate. It's a 1988 and has over 300,000 miles on it now. It's got some rust but I think it's been a mountain car its entire life.

When the roads are crappy slush/ice or covered in snow the Terc my go-to car. It's damned near unstoppable when conditions get bad.

It's cheap to drive, cheap to maintain, goes anywhere and provides HUGE value for the money I've got into it, which is next to nothing.

It makes me smile every time I drive it. I love this car.

We had a light green Tercel 4WD wagon when I was in High School and living in Spokane. That car rocked. It went ANYWHERE, hauled everything we ever needed to haul. And was cheap. I think it was well over 200k of miles when it finally sold. I had a couple of Tercels in my High School/Early 20's. Those things just kept running and running and were good cheap cars.

They had the AWD Matrix for awhile which was basically a Corolla wagon.

We had one of those Tercels 4 wd guys... put close to 500,000kms on it.... I think the body was made out of sugar.

I sure miss it

They made a Corolla 4wd for a bit after the Tercel line was done but I don't think it took off. and yes then the Matrix, it had a 4wd option as well.

I have one of them,an 83. Used as an ATV to move my firewood/rocks/gravel/lumber and skidding rather big logs. Strictly offroad now altough I had it plated a few years back. Have I ever beaten the crap out of it for the last 10 years. 387,000 Kms on what looks like the original motor.

Just did an oil change on it, tought it was needed after 10 years, and refilled it with slightly used BMW motorcycle oil.

Wouldn't climb the hills last summer, fuel filter was plugged from all the old gas I dump in it. Another $2.00 easy fix.

Don't leave boxes of Kleenexes inside, mouse may crawl in and make a heck of a mess.:eek1 That's OK, was well overdue for a few minutes of ShopVac work.

Full set of chains on....winch in the back,that thing will crawl up the face of a goat.

If I had a little more time I'd install a snowplow on it. Will depend on how much pushing the snowblower for hours will piss me off this winter.

Best $500.00 I ever spent, should take it to the neighbor today and refill the water jugs. Just nother 900 lbs load and lots less than I have loaded in it before.

I would see them on the road when they first came out and I thought it would be a real popular car, but sadly not. Would have been one of the few competitors for the Subaru.

Never understood why Toyota has not made a line of AWD sedans and wagons as a mainstay of their line. They make good SUV's, and trucks.

I had an '85 Tercel hatchback through college. It was the car I learned to drive in as a teen - I bought it off my dad. That car was rusted out really badly (including the gas tank, which was starting to leak) when I finally gave it up but still running strong and never used a drop of oil.

Best car ever.

Great, goofy. and fun little wagons. They were a lot similar to the fun Subaru GL10 wagons but got better gas mileage. I'd certainly buy a new version.

The 4wd Tercel and the old GL Subarus are both very popular where I live. People keep them covered with a tarp all summer, then out they come year after year.

I would actually like to get my hands on one of these:

Celica All-Trac GT Four

Had an '88 that I sold to an inmate not long ago. I miss that car

Got to many caving expeditions using it, showed my kids how to drive a stick shift in it, showed them how (not) to drive on slick, icy roads with it, took it on long road trips, short road trips, dirt trips, slow trips, fast trips, and up mountains
Never left me stranded


I'll bet the piece of cardboard from the box the thermostat came in is still holding a good seal on the housing...

I had a white '84 for a while. Goddamn that was a fun little car.

There was no center diff, so you could only use 4WD on loose surfaces. Lots of fun playing rally car on gravel roads, and it was indeed almost impossible to get stuck.

I just had to keep plugging up the massive rust holes in the body with more spray foam every few months. I sold it to a friend eventually, and she drove it until the strut towers started to fall apart from corrosion. She drove it to the junk yard at somewhere close to 400,000 miles and cried like she was having a good dog put down.

Cheap and easy to service, too. For example, the front struts used cartridges. When I replaced the clutch, getting the transmission and transfer case out and back in by myself was a bit of a bear (OMFG heavy...). Lots of room to work on stuff.

TONS of room inside, too -- the high roof in the back meant you could haul SOOOOOOO much crap.

Mine was an SR5 with the goofy little tilt-o-meter on the dash.

My wife hated the thing. I guess it did smell a little funny...


And yes, I wish Toyota would make a new one. Keep it light, simple, and rugged. Alas, the closest things we have nowadays are porky expensive Subarus. Toyota's RAV4 started out OK, but has grown to the approximate size, weight, and cost of an Abrams tank for some reason.

Toyota's pickups have the same problem, come to think of it. They started out as cheerful little cheap-to-drive pickups in a usefully small size, and then bloated to the point there's little difference and no mileage or cost benefit over buying a full-size pickup.

AWD Matrix.

I had the 4 dr hatchback version of this baby, great car...can't remember why I got rid of it.

The back of the car looked like an ATM.

I saw one once, lifted with BFG Mud Terrains, show up at the tail end of a nasty ass trail. There was no way that could have or should have been where it was. Gotta be a great little car based on that one fact alone!

That's about right.

My parents had one of those when I was a teenager. I abused the piss out of that car and it kept on trucking. I can remember being out at 2 am with my friends, trying to find a slope steep enough to get the goofy angle meter on the dash to bury itself. Great cars; I still see a few around.

It's definitely a missing segment in the market, just like how there's not a current equivalent of those old Mercedes station wagons that were marketed to be super practical and economical load carriers.

Wow, never expected 2 pages of love.

I bought mine because the 2 kids, 7 and 4, were complaining they couldn't see out of the backseat of our only family car, a '75 280Z 2+2 (slackers). That, and the fact they never plowed our street in Queens after a 2' snowfall, and I couldn't get off the block for 5 days.

I swore I'd never get stranded again, and looked for a 4wd, wound up with the Tercel. And I never did get stranded again.

Mine was a tan color, Sahara I think, and no, good looks weren't one of it's strong points.

When the body started to rust, which might have been a result of my wife getting hit 3 times in that car, I actually bought an SR-5 gold/brown 2 tone with a bad engine, and swapped mine into it. But that started rusting too, so I replaced it with an Izuzu Trooper which was a disaster, sold it less than 6 months later, and bought a new Mazda Protege LX in 1990.

Hey Toyota, I still want a new one.

I learned to drive on one of these...



... Toyota Corrola AWD. It was a totally awesome tank of a car. Really, it was a great car.

So, yeah, Toyota has some greatness in them. And they just need to get in touch with their greatness again. Thankfully they asked Subaru for some help.