Junkyard Find: 1984 Toyota Tercel Deluxe 4WD Wagon
Toyota sold the 4WD Tercel wagon in the United States for the 1983 through 1988 model years, and it was a strong seller along the I-25 corridor between Cheyenne and Albuquerque. Here's an '84 that I discovered in a New Mexico boneyard last week.
I run across so many of these cars during my I-25 junkyard travels, even nearly four decades after the final ones were built, that I only photograph the particularly interesting examples.
I hadn't been to New Mexico for about a year and wanted to browse the excellent junkyards a six-hour drive south of my Denver base of operations. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't ideal on the day I drove down, with blowing dust causing a massive crash on the northbound side of the freeway. Driving tip: if you can't see anything through the windshield, don't go 90 mph.
I'm glad I chose the household beater for the trip, since a bit of paint sandblasting doesn't make much difference on a 22-year-old Outback that has endured numerous hailstorms and been hit dozens of times while parked on a narrow Denver street.
In its homeland, this car was badged as the Sprinter Carib. It was based on the Tercel platform, while its successors were Corollas underneath (the JDM versions retained the Sprinter Carib name all the way through 2002).
The third-generation Sprinter Carib wasn't sold in the United States (even the regular Corolla wagon got axed here after 1996), but perhaps it could have stolen sales from the increasingly popular Subaru Legacy Outback wagon.
But that's assuming an alternate universe in which Americans didn't ditch wagons (and sedans and hatchbacks) for trucks as the 1990s went on. In that universe, even the Nissan Avenir Blastar might have reached our shores. BLASTAR!
As it was, the second-generation Sprinter Carib was called the Corolla All-Trac Wagon in North America. It sold pretty well at first, but the RAV4 shoved it aside.
What I found interesting about this car is that it's a base-model (for the 4WD wagon) Deluxe, yet the original purchaser loaded it up with costly options instead of getting the top-trim-level SR5. This air conditioning cost 600 bucks, about 1,915 bucks in 2026 money.
This AM/FM stereo radio was standard equipment in the SR5, but cost $270 in the Deluxe ($862 after inflation). I wonder how many times "99 Luftballoons" played over this radio in 1984.
The digital clock, rear wiper and a bunch of other stuff were extra-cost on this car as well, and then there's the automatic transmission. I have three 1984 price guides and each shows a wildly different figure for the automatic (the SR5 came with a six-speed overdrive manual as base equipment). We can assume the slushbox was plenty.
I think the sales staff at Julian Garcia's Toyota City in Albuquerque did a good job moving this iron. Yes, I bought this dealer plate (New Mexico is a rear-plate-only state, so a lot of dealerships slap these on their merchandise). Julian Garcia sold Toyotas in New Mexico starting way back in 1967, eventually branching out into DeLoreans; he died of carbon monoxide poisoning the same year this Tercel was sold.
While these cars got respectable fuel economy and were reasonably competent off-road with their true four-wheel-drive powertrains, they were quite slow. This 1.5-liter 3A-C was rated at 62 horsepower and 76 pound-feet.
With a curb weight of just 2,280 pounds, this car wasn't quite intolerably underpowered by the standards of its era, but I've owned several Tercel wagons (both FWD and 4WD) and they were Poky Little Puppies for sure.
The handling was a bit tippy as well, thanks to the top-heavy powertrain system with a longitudinal engine mounted over the front differential. That said, these cars were just about immortal (as long as the sheet metal held out against the Rust Monster). This one made it well past the 200k-mile point, and I've found one of these cars in a junkyard with better than 400,000 miles on the clock.
Cars don't rust much in New Mexico, but Japanese vehicles of this era were extremely prone to corrosion. This one has body holes in the usual spots.
I think it stopped running and got parked outdoors, years or maybe decades ago. One would have expected a 2004 Kerry-Edwards voter to have replaced this bumper sticker with an Obama-Biden update four years later, had this Tercel still been on the road by then, but instead it just bleached in the sun for 20 years. That "I'm For the Separation of Church & Hate" sticker below it is still available, by the way.
The employees of the Albuquerque U-Pull-&-Pay are hard workers, and they keep a tidy yard with biohazardous interiors marked with warning signs. I've never seen another yard that even bothers with mold warnings; rodent droppings, meth-lab chemicals and bodily fluids, sure, but not mold.
Happy Choice!
As you'd expect, the US-market commercials aren't nearly as good as their JDM counterparts (but still fun).
The best gas mileage of any four-wheel-drive car (at the time of the Tercel 4WD wagon's launch, US-market competition for that prize was limited to the AMC Eagle, Subaru Leone and Audi Quattro).
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
1984 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon in New Mexico wrecking yard.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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One of the cars that got famous again when Breaking Bad had a character driving one for several seasons. The other one being the Aztek. Importing one of the later generations of this wagon is becoming more and more common as well. I have seen many JDM wagons for sale online and I find them more appealing than any 20 year old crossover we have here in the states.
the reason for the odd options is its an automatic. the sr5 was paired with the 6 speed manual only. if you wanted an automatic you had to step down to the dlx trim package. funnily enough almost all sr5 goodies were available ala-carte on the dlx, including air conditioning, cruise control, and even a power sunroof.