1977 Toyota Corolla DLX from North America - Comments

Nothing so far, just picked it up for 1200 bucks.

Thing is in incredible shape. Interior is perfect. Owned by an old guy who kept in a barn for the better part of 15 years, then by a family who took great care of it, then a guy who did nothing, but drive it from Mission to Langley on the highway. He put a tach in it for all the highway use. Extremely solid car. Simple, no muss, basic electrics, very little to go wrong. I can work on it myself, and I'm not car buff. Parts are easy to come by... more of these cars were sold than any other from 1974 to 1977. Fun to drive. Retro charm. Handling is great, even with the rear-drive live axle on leaf springs. Turning circle of a unicycle. Starts first time every time. Massive headroom, seats aren't bad. Probably want to put new wheels/tires on it... the 13" pizza cutters don't really hold the road well - scary at 70mph in the wind. Very little rust... mostly surface. This summer I plan to grind it all down, prime and repaint.

The car has a least a quarter million miles left in it, easy. I'll probably own it for a couple decades, then give it to one of my kids.

Also considering dropping it a few inches... it seems a bit top-heavy. The ideal configuration would be some 15" steel wheels (so as not to look too aftermarket) with some grippy rubber.

Looking forward to a long friendship with this baby!

I had a 1977 Corolla Deluxe with the 1.6 I-4 that I bought for $200cdn back in 1994 that was an awesome car bad rust and all that fun stuff, but man that they could take a beating. In the year I had it I put on 32,000 miles and only left Abbotsford area a few times, in fact I think the car left the ground more often then I left town. Mine was set up for off-road work ;) 185/80R13 tires gave it a slight lift, but I still managed to get the thing high centered on some of the trails. I also found out if you jump them to high to often that it will break the shocks in the back and once you do manage to get the doors open they won't shut until you readjust them again, all four of us had to hold our doors shut on the way back from the Fraser River not too bad, was only about a 15 minute drive since the cops were somewhere else, but the alignment was off so I almost ended up in a ditch each time I had to shift. After about 16,000 miles of my driving the oil light came on, checked it and it still was at the full line so I went ahead and did my only oil change in the time I owned it. Other than that I had charging problems mainly due to somebody taking off all the heat shields and as a result about every Wed or Thurs one of the wires going to the alternator would bake and then break, but since it was only happening about every 600 miles it didn't bother me to much. The week after I sold it to some kid to drive in his dads fields Capt Crunch finally had one with the heat shields I needed. I still miss that car, but I don't live in BC anymore and the local police here in USA doesn't let us get away with as much as the Abbotsford police & RCMP did. By all sane reasoning that car should of blown up on me and no explanation of why it didn't when my friends pegged the needle on the tach at 9000ish RPM, at that point so much gravel was hitting the car that we couldn't hear the engine so I don't know if it was complaining to much. I was bound and determined to kill this car and when I failed and had to sell my rust bucket it was at my self imposed 16,000 mile oil change mark, but I was only getting $75 so I left it and it made it another year and a half of driving in farm fields before the clutch went out. Most fun I ever had for $200 bucks and I am the reason you should never let a 17 year old male have a car like this.