Doylestown Auto Repair

Junkyard Gem: 1982 Toyota Starlet

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Toyota

built

the gas-sipping Starlet

from 1973 through 1999, but North Americans had the opportunity to buy new Starlets just for the 1981 through 1984 model years (and then only the three-door hatchback version). The rear-wheel-drive Starlet was cramped and underpowered, but it got the best or close to the best

fuel economy

in the country during its brief American reign. Here’s a frighteningly bent ’82 that I spotted in a Northern California self-service yard.

Junked 1982 Toyota Starlet

It looks like a glancing fragile-car-versus-concrete barrier impact ended this Starlet’s 37-year driving career. Let’s hope everyone inside had their seat belts fastened.

Junked 1982 Toyota Starlet

We’ll tell you the horsepower of this

4K pushrod engine

, but only if you promise not to laugh. OK, it made 58 hp. Curb weight was a mere 1,724 pounds, though, which was 70 fewer pounds than the flyweight ’82

Honda Civic

. The good news is that the rear-wheel-drive layout of the Starlet lends itself to

powertrain upgrades

.

Junked 1982 Toyota Starlet

There wasn’t much to go wrong with the Starlet, which benefited from the excellent Toyota build quality of the era, and these cars made excellent penny-pinching Point-A-to-Point-B commuters.

Junked 1982 Toyota Starlet

I still

see the occasional Starlet

during

my junkyard travels

, but sightings are getting increasingly rare. Supposedly, automatic-equipped Starlets were sold, but I’ve seen only manual-transmission examples so far.

Junked 1982 Toyota Starlet

Don’t

dab

and drive. Please!

Coming just a couple of years after the

worst of the gas lines

, Toyota had a persuasive selling point here.

A decade later, Toyota sold Starlets in Japan with one of the greatest car commercials in human history.

from Autoblog http://bit.ly/2vQN5GQ