Shoichiro Toyoda, the son of Toyota’s founder who joined the company in 1952, became Chairman, ushered Toyota into the modern era, and remained as honorary Chairman for life, passed away yesterday at the ripe old age of 97. The man’s impact on the automotive industry is beyond my writing talents but you can read more here in the Washington Post or here in Jalopnik. Toyotas have wandered in and out of my life over the last 40 years so I thought I’d post a few loosely linked to, of course, their CarMax 従兄弟さん (cousins – clever, eh?) It is a CarMax unicorn blog after all.
Before we go to the CarMax inventory I thought I’d include the Toyota “Toyopet Crown” above, the first Japanese car imported to the United States back in 1958 – before I was born! It flopped miserably and after Shoichiro Toyodan drove one around the US to get first hand impressions he went back to Japan and gently raised hell. If you want the whole story, read the Toyota UK magazine piece here.
Ironic that 65 years later the Crown is being reintroduced to the US market, albeit in a wildly different elevated-sedan-not-quite-crossover 2023 model. Those aren’t on CarMax lots just yet, so will go with three that are, and those are also three that I have owned back in the day – two as CPO’s before I ever heard of CarMax and one as a brand new car back in 1996.
Had I not been the one to locate this car on the web I would not be able to identify it as a Toyota Avalon – a 2020 model. The Avalon came to the US in 1995 and has been berated by car magazines ever since as a Japanese Buick. My two yen is that writers are plagiarists (I know I am) and will parrot critiques to be clever or consistent. Having owned and rented Avalons I’d say it’s unfair. I take that back – it does float like a Buick, as does probably a dozen other family cars this size and it’s no better or worse. But every review has to have the “Buick” comparison. Anyway, I chose this one because it’s fairly loaded and I dig the wheels. I have always dug BBS style black spoked rims with silver lips. Someday I will put those on a V-12 Mercedes.
The Avalon is loaded with adaptive cruise, Apple CarPlay, JBL audio, heated and cooling seats and on and on. About as comfortable of a ride as you’re going to find at this price point.
Unfortunately, Toyota just won’t give us a decent motor in the Avalon. The 3.5 liter V-6 ony has 301 horsepower and takes all of six seconds to hit sixty. I can’t live with that. But if you can, this car is now here in College Station, Texas. It was once $44,000 and three years later is $10,000 less. Skip MaxCare.
Stock No. 23680936 VIN: 4T1DZ1FB6LU039867
And here we have the only surviving photo of my 1996 Avalon I bought in 1998 as a CPO. Loved that car and my pre-teen boys did too as we drove up and down the East Coast on vacation. If only it had a bigger motor. Sold it to buy a brand new Acura MDX, and regretted that.
And FWIW, below is the Toyota Avalon I rented in August 2022 to play a music gig in Stafford, Virginia before driving to North Carolina to do some work. Never made it. Came out of our hotel in the morning to find the window smashed and my guitars stolen. We NEVER leave the guitars in the car! Had to ditch the car in Richmond but in my short time with it I started to wonder if I could own another?
Gotta move on. Below we have a 2022 Toyota Camry TRD (Toyota Racing Division). It looks badass and has a wing and is the TRD trim…and yet it’s really just a gussied up Camry. The suspension is tweaked for better handling and the exhaust for better sound, and yet the motor is the motor – same 3.5 liter six cylinder with the same horsepower. The Camry shares the Avalon’s platform so other than the suspension this car is the same.
Clearly Toyota has the engineering and racing pedigree to give us more. I so loved it fifteen or so years ago when Toyota went into NASCAR, thinking that’s gotta be disruptive for the good old boys on the ovals. Especially when they teamed up with Joe Gibbs Racing, Mr. Gibbs being a hero around these parts from his NFL days. I have wondered how they run a V-8 for NASCAR without offering it on the street.
Hell, let’s pull on that Toyota racing thread a little more and watch the Rod Millen Celica set the record for his class at Pike’s Peak back in the day. Why is this relevant?
Because I got to ride around a track in a race car with Rod at the wheel scaring the living hell out of me in a prototype some time back. It was a short oval and I was stunned at the grip, the lateral G-forces, and how we didn’t end up in the wall. I love to drive fast and think I’m above average at it. This was at a whole ‘nuther level. Got me a Rod Millen autographed Hot Wheels Celica out of the deal. In fact, got two and tried to sell the second one on eBay to declutter my office, with no luck.
Back to the Toyota Camry. I got sidetracked. The Camry is equipped almost identical to the Avalon above and the interior is modified a bit. The Avalon has enormous rear seat room while the Camry is simply adequate to very good.
No point in showing the obligatory motor photo – it really is identical to the Avalon. Motor Trend tells me the 2022 Toyota Camry TRD sold new for perhaps $34,000, and this one is slightly used at $38k – wondering if MT showed MSRP and cars were marked up tremendously during the pandemic/supply chain mess? CarMax prices are coming down so don’t think they’re gouging. Either way the car is here in Sanford, Florida.
StockNo. 23362535 VIN: 4T1KZ1AK2NU061169
What’s this doing here? Well, its the lone photo I have of my 1990 Toyota Camry I bought in 1994 when my Merkur XR4ti melted down. This Camry was my first CPO and my introduction to extended warranty work. Toyota rebuilt the 2.0 liter four banger when the car had 80,000 miles and was inexplicably burning oil. Romantic sidebar. I met and asked my wife-to-be out on a date when I was the owner of a cool Merkur. It collapsed before we went out, and I had to car shop in time for our first date. I actually asked her “if I get something dull like a Camry will you still go out with me?”, not knowing how not into cars she was. She said of course, I bought the four cylinder five-speed Camry and we are still together 29 years later. And she still thinks her Buick Encore was a good car. The Camry was my introduction also into the stress free life of knowing my car was going to start every day and make it to work with no drama. Regrettably I had to sell that Camry not long after the rebuild when I was assigned overseas again.
Last on our nostalgic Toyota tribute in honor of Mr. Toyoda is this 2020 Toyota RAV4 TRD Off Road model. Wouldn’t think of a RAV4 as an off road model, and yet Motor Trend gave it reasonably good reviews here for actually going off road comfortably. Loved their description “Comfortably is the key word there, because as we all know nothing off-roads better than a rental car.” No locking differentials or two speed transfer and yet they thought it didn’t need that – pretty good AWD system anyway. The Off Road trim elevates the car a good 1.5″ and doubles the towing capacity if you need that.
The RAV4 is just as loaded inside as the Avalon and the Camry; heated steering wheel, adaptive cruise control, CarPlay, JBL sound, cross traffic alert – why is it the European cars I look at cost twice as much and so often don’t have this equipment?
The 2020 Toyota RAV4 TRD Off Road packs a 203 horsepower 2.5 liter four cylinder that’s just good enough for this little SUV. The car sold for maybe $42,000 three years ago and carries a little more discount than the Camry. It’s “Coming Soon” here in Roswell, New Mexico.
Alright, who off roads in a cute-ute? Well, I did. Owned a first gen first year RAV4 in 1996 in Israel. Drove pretty much the entire country on paved roads and even ventured into the wilderness from time to time. Car was $15,000 new.
The photo below was my RAV4 successfully getting air out of a ravine four-wheeling with friends from the Embassy. Was a hoot. What you will not see is the time I tried to drive the “Burma Road” from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the rain and buried the RAV4 in the mud a mere 100 yards or so off the paved highway. Tried everything I could to dig it out with no luck. Hailed a tow truck that extracted the vehicle – then wanted to charge me $600 for doing so. I said no way – it’s an Embassy vehicle and he would need to deal with my local national motor pool guy to collect. There was no local national motor pool guy but the Embassy expediter helped me out the next day haggling the fee down to $200. Probably cost me another $50 to clean the mud out of the interior after the hours I spent getting in and out of the car trying to rock it free. Sigh.
I’m not a total buffoon when it comes to off roading, though. There was a time in the 80’s when I successfully drove Pakistan’s Swat Valley in a Toyota Landcruiser – a RHD FJ60, I believe, with a diesel six and a four speed manual transmission. Indestructible. It would be embarrassed by it’s RAV4 grandson.
There was also a time there when I may or may not have bought a couple of hundred Toyota HiLux pickup trucks for some local boys who may or may not have been fighting what we affectionately called “The Soviets”. (This is NOT the West Virginia National Guard.) Challenging logistics – Pakistan is RHD and Afghanistan is (was?) LHD.
One of the innovations Mr. Shoichiro Toyoda gave us in the 1980’s was NUMMI Motors (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.), the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. Toyota got a manufacturing beach head in the US and GM learned how to make cheap, small cars of decent quality. NUMMI produced Toyota Corollas and its rebadged twin, the 1985 Chevrolet Nova. NUMMI reopened the Fremont, California GM plant for this effort in 1984.
The Chevrolet Nova didn’t last, although it was not a bad car by any means. My best friend bought one new. By 1988 the Nova was no more. At the time I lamented that GM learned how to build cheap economy cars, and Toyota came away positioned to sell us….the Lexus below. Lexus was the second Japanese manufacturer to spin off a luxury brand (Honda/Acura being the first) and the V-8 powered LS400 debuted in 1989. I’m thinking Toyota got the better end of the deal from NUMMI.
I’m almost done. It was my pleasure to assist a young lady in my office way back in 1985 pick out her first car – a used Toyota Tercel. Bronze and adorable. The Tercel was cute too. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.
And finally, my best friend jettisoned his 1985 Chevrolet Nova for a really spiffy second generation 1991 Toyota MR2 that he loaned me once or twice. It was an honest to God grown up’s sports car and so much fun. Mid-engined and manual transmission. I once wanted a Fiero and feel a bit sheepish admitting that now.
This could go on and on. By the time I’m done Mr. Toyoda’s son, who recently stepped down as Chairman, will pass on! Impressive legacy left by Shoichiro Toyoda with the Toyota dynasty, and I’ll leave you with two unlikely Toyota products below that we could not have imagined when those first economy cars came off the ships way back when – a gigantic pickup truck and a luxury semi-exotic. Then again, maybe the HiLux and the first gen Supra were paving the way all along?
