{"id":44078,"date":"2023-03-03T00:03:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T05:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=44078"},"modified":"2023-03-03T00:03:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T05:03:15","slug":"junkyard-gem-1991-toyota-cressida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=44078","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1991 Toyota Cressida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toyota’s<\/a> first big sales success in North America was the Corona<\/a>, which went on sale here in the 1966 model year<\/a> and proved to be a lot of car for the money (my first car was a 1969 Corona sedan<\/a>, which I bought for $50 at the age of 14, so I admit a touch of Corona bias<\/a> here). Toyota did very well selling cars<\/a> here during the 1970s and 1980s, but never really raked in the big yen from the American luxury-sedan segment until the debut of the Lexus LS 400 for the 1990 model year<\/a>. Prior to that, Toyota Motor Sales USA tried to get Americans to buy upscale Crowns<\/a> and Corona Mark IIs<\/a>, without notable success. Finally, the 1978 Toyopet Corona Mark II<\/a> showed up here with Cressida badges<\/a>, and\u00a0some<\/em> Americans felt willing to buy this big, six-cylinder-powered luxury machine. Cressida sales never really took off here, but Americans could buy Cressidas all the way through 1992<\/a>. The 1990s Cressidas are nearly impossible to find in car graveyards today, but I pulled off the feat in Sparks, Nevada, a couple of months back.<\/p>\n

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The LS 400<\/a> was a masterpiece of engineering, with its brand-new V8 engine and all the other innovations, and it scared the daylights out of the suits at the big European car companies. It also made the Cressida seem a bit small and old-fashioned, so it’s surprising that Toyota kept it on sale here for the 1990-1992 model years.<\/p>\n

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Under the skin, the Cressida was always a close relative of the same-year Supra<\/a>. That meant that its suspension and powertrain were generally<\/a> similar to Supra hardware of the same period (much as the rear-wheel-drive Datsun 810\/Nissan Maxima<\/a> shared much engineering DNA with the Z-Car<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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This car has the 7M-GE straight-six engine, rated at 190 horsepower and 185 pound-feet (the Supra version got a bit more power).<\/p>\n

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While the 1991 Mark II in Japan<\/a> could be purchased with a five-speed manual transmission, American Cressida buyers had to take the four-speed Aisin automatic.<\/p>\n

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These cars held together very well, though this one just managed 172,794 miles before the end.<\/p>\n

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In 1991, the Lexus LS<\/a> 400 had an MSRP of $36,955 (about $81,490 in 2022 dollars), which undercut the Mercedes-Benz S-Class<\/a> by a dismaying amount but caused problems for Toyota salesmen who were trying to get $22,198 ($48,945 today) for a new Cressida.<\/p>\n

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The Cressida that year was quite luxurious and very well built, but the new Lexus<\/a> looked like more car per dollar at the time.<\/p>\n

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Toyota continued to install combination CD\/cassette players in Lexuses well into our current century. Naturally, this Cressida has that rig.<\/p>\n

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I think this is the first Ouija board I’ve ever found in a junkyard vehicle.<\/p>\n\n

Sadly, we never got the supercharged version over here, nor did we get a Cressida Grande.<\/p>\n\n

The most trouble-free car sold in America!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toyota’s first big sales success in North America was the Corona, which went on sale here in the 1966 model year and proved to be a lot of car for the money (my first car was a 1969 Corona sedan, which I bought for $50 at the age of 14, so I admit a touch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}