Junkyard Gem: 1986 Toyota Cressida sedan

The

Toyota

Corona (last sold in the United States in the 1982) had a bigger cousin in its Japanese homeland: the

Corona Mark II or simply the Mark II

. Starting in 1977, Toyota began selling the Mark II— named the Cressida, after a Shakespeare character— in North America, to compete with the similarly luxurious

Datsun

810 (which became the

Nissan Maxima

). The fifth-generation 1985-1988 Cressidas held together extremely well, and so plenty of them have survived 30 years and are only now

showing up in wrecking yards

. Here’s an ‘

86

sedan I spotted in a Denver yard.

The

fifth-generation Cressida

sold here for the 1985 through 1988 model years, shared much of its chassis and running-gear design with the

Supra

. This one has the

5M-GE engine

, rated at 156 horsepower. That’s one more horse than the optional V8 in the much heavier 1986

Chevrolet

Caprice sedan.

This is one of the lowest mileage figures I’ve ever seen on a 1980s junkyard Toyota; most of these

cars show

more like 250k miles by the time they get to a place like this.

Plush JDM-style cloth seats (cloth is quieter than leather and generally preferred by luxury-car shoppers in Japan), and those hateful automatic seat belts that deserve to be on the ash heap of history.

Americans could buy a new Cressida until the 1992 model year, but the arrival of the bigger and swankier

Lexus

LS400 in 1990 really crushed Cressida sales. The

Avalon

, introduced for the 1995 model year, was something of a Cressida replacement, though it suffered from front-wheel-drive and

Camry

origins.

By the most exacting standards, you stand out. You’re the best, and your car is no exception.