My 1986 Toyota Cressida

[GM_IV]

Originally Posted by TopGearDog

Very nice car

I've been tempted to buy this 1978 Cressida, but dont really have the money to repair it.

I wouldn't know what to do if I saw a Cressida of that vintage being sold here, especially the coupe version which is extremely rare worldwide. Any 70s Toyota is almost extinct in Toronto because of road salt, a low volume Cressida is extremely rare. I personally think that is the best looking version of all Cressida generations.

Originally Posted by Dsemaj

Awesome! I know your feeling about your car, I feel the same way about my Bluebird. Apart from it has a hell of a lot less power, and I keep spoiling myself by driving my dad's car.. which makes it feel wooden!

But still, if I keep it, it'll be for a long, long time.

EDIT: Oh, and awesome rear leg room, and the dash is straight out 1980s! I've got LED Bar-stacks for all my 4 gauges, analogue everything else.

I haven't quite driven another car that spoiled me, possibly because very few cars I've driven that cornered that well. I've seen your Bluebird in your thread, its in great condition and its great your keeping it for a long time.

The reason for the good leg room is probably because the length of my car is probably the only dimension of my car that didn't really age, its roughly as long as a modern Camry. Width and height are a different story, a Toyota Yaris is the same width, while almost nothing new is as short to my Cressida. As for the digi dashes, I think only Nissan and Toyota managed to do them properly during the 80s. Toyota improved drastically with very easy to read and organized gauges in the mid 80s while I think Nissan for the whole time had clear and reliable dashes. The only item on my dash that isn't digital is the odometer, I guess they wanted to make sure that always worked.

[TopGearDog]

Originally Posted by GM_IV

I wouldn't know what to do if I saw a Cressida of that vintage being sold here, especially the coupe version which is extremely rare worldwide. Any 70s Toyota is almost extinct in Toronto because of road salt, a low volume Cressida is extremely rare. I personally think that is the best looking version of all Cressida generations.

Yes i love that Cressida look and i would love to buy it, but it's got a lot of rust holes hiding behind the scenes as we also have road salt in Iceland and it will probably be impossible to find parts for it here so i would expect an expensive restoration. But the car is a runner and the guy wont sell it to just any kid looking for a basher, only people with full intention of restoring it.

[GM_IV]

Originally Posted by TopGearDog

Yes i love that Cressida look and i would love to buy it, but it's got a lot of rust holes hiding behind the scenes as we also have road salt in Iceland and it will probably be impossible to find parts for it here so i would expect an expensive restoration. But the car is a runner and the guy wont sell it to just any kid looking for a basher, only people with full intention of restoring it.

Ah, that is a problem, the old 70s Toyotas that didn't rust to death likely have been sheltered and remain mostly inactive unlike the 80s Toyotas which are still commonly used as beaters. Toyota still has some parts for the 85-88 and 89-92 generations because Southern California still has a somewhat active Cressida presence with those versions of cars.

You identified a trait lot of Cressida owners have these days is that they're picky with who they sell to, if they suspect the car will be heading to its grave with the new owner they're much less likely to sell.

[GM_IV]

I sent the Cressida to the body shop today. I took some photos of it on Sunday, didn't upload them yesterday because I was tired after work.

This is the car on its best side.


The hail has damage quite a few chrome pieces, fortunately they can be fixed.


The hood, roof and trunk are all full of small dents on the top because of the hail. Its really hard to take a picture of hail damage on this car because its not all that visible except on certain angles, this picture is the only one that you could see a bit of the damage. If you look closely you'll see the surface is uneven, that's where the dents are. The picture is a bit misleading, there's lots of dents on the roof.


This was caused by an idiot hit and runner who thought I wouldn't notice. The bumper is not the biggest worry but that smashed corner trim piece cannot really be repaired. I had to go and buy one from Toyota because nobody is willing to tear their car out for that small piece.


Since I have no car, I had to rent one from work so I took a Mazda 6.

[GM_IV]

Well my car is finally complete, the car was out of the shop a while ago but not all the trim pieces came by that time so that took a lot longer. The car was in the shop for 17 days, during this time the car had the rear fenders replaced, the hail damage repaired, repair rust spots all over the body, exterior painted in the same colour as specified by Toyota and lastly rust proofing.

If you noticed from my earlier photos I lost the trunk lid chrome trim quite some time ago. I finally got a hold of one so I can say I have all the chrome trim pieces on my car, I must say they do make the car look nicer...but its expensive for basically automotive jewelry The body shop guys were worried the chrome pieces surrounding the windshield actually held the windshields in place, turns out they don't actually hold the windshield just merely surround it making repairs there easier.

Here's photos of how much rust was on the rear wheel wells after 22 years of Toronto winter salt to 1980s Toyota metal. I must have forgotten to upload these.





Here's the few photos I managed to get of it in the shop before they completed it.







This is what the car now looks like:















I'm happy with the results, I couldn't have found a less expensive repair that would have resulted in the same quality of work I have had. Several people I know have hail damage that was far more expensive than the total repair bill for my whole car including the stuff I had to buy from Toyota directly. For certain, this coming winter I'm going to have to aggressively fight the salt to prevent me from having to do this again since parts are starting to become scarce.

[Dsemaj]

Looks mint now! Get those tissues out of the parcel rack!

[Shawn]

Looking good mate! Love the oh so squared off design of the Cressida.

[Cellos88GT]

We used to have a white 88 Cressida that was a complete turd. Damn thing only lasted 103,000 miles before the engine exploded. Never ran right and the interior pissed me off.

Still miss the damn thing though...hahaha I wish I could've gutted it out and and fixed up the engine...but oh well

[LeVeL]

body shop??? My friend took his cressida to the "body shop" after failing at drifting and hitting a guardrail... he tied it to a tree and floored it in reverse - worked surprisingly well.

[Censport]

Originally Posted by GM_IV

Interesting time to necro my car thread. I just acquired all the trim pieces I need to replace, finalized the timing of when I'm going to get the body completely overhauled. I'm dropping off the car on Tuesday. Since those pictures, my car has been crashed into by an idiot hit and runner, fortunately minor damage except it completely bent a chrome trim piece. My car also was also hit by a very very bad hail storm so several dents all over the hood, roof and trunk. The hail damage repair is the most expensive addition to all the bodywork, I'm somewhat glad my car is tougher than a lot of newer cars, among my co-workers my car is the 2nd cheapest to repair it was only beaten by an H3. I'll take pictures on the weekend basically as a before image.

I've always liked that series of Cressida. There's a fairly nice one I've seen on the east side of Nashville. Shame about the damage though. For the hail dents, you should consider one of those paintless dent repair guys. My Miata was badly damaged all over when I bought it, and I saved a couple thousand by having it smoothed back out instead of buying every panel and taking it to a body shop.

Edited to add: Oops. Didn't realize I was too late. Oh well, it looks terrific now.

[GM_IV]

Originally Posted by Censport

I've always liked that series of Cressida. There's a fairly nice one I've seen on the east side of Nashville. Shame about the damage though. For the hail dents, you should consider one of those paintless dent repair guys. My Miata was badly damaged all over when I bought it, and I saved a couple thousand by having it smoothed back out instead of buying every panel and taking it to a body shop.

Edited to add: Oops. Didn't realize I was too late. Oh well, it looks terrific now.

The good thing about this generation of Cressida is extremely similar to the MA60/MA61 Supra(2nd gen) almost everything in that car is a bolt-on swap for this Cressida. The W58 manual transmission being the only thing I can think of that doesn't quite swap, the 3rd gen's W58 being the preferred choice.

As for the hail damage they only added $800 to my original estimate. No panel was replaced for hail, only panels with too much rust.

[public]

How close is it to a Soarer of similar vintage?

[GM_IV]

Originally Posted by public

How close is it to a Soarer of similar vintage?

Quite similar since the Soarers have always been basically luxury versions of the Supra while still retaining its 2-door form. The original Z1 Soarers actually got a better engine both Cressida and Supra, it has the rare 6M-GE which is a extremely easy fit for any car with a 5M-GE. The Z2 Soarer got the turbocharged 7M-GTE, none of the Cressidas got a turbocharged engine.

There are 3 Japanese versions of the Cressida all sharing the same chassis. The Mark II the base car and usually contains the most similar interior to the Cressida. The Cresta which is the luxury version of the Mark II, the Cressida got some of its toys and some of the exterior trim styling(mostly the chrome stuff), lastly the sportier one the Chaser being the true 4-door Supra and certainly one of the fastest 4-door cars Toyota has ever made.

[public]

I kinda like these.



MICRO PROCESSED AUTOMATIC AIR CONDITIONER. How much more convincing can it get?