Car Craze

The first Americanized Toyota was the Tiara, more popularly known as the Toyota Corona. When it came out in 1964, the six passenger car had a 90 horsepower engine and was fairly comfortable inside. It was sold at a reasonable price which was a little below the smallest sedans with a good balance of performance, gas mileage and comfort.

The Corona four-door sedan was competing mainly against the Volkswagen Beetle which was not actually considered of the same category. It fast became known in the early days for quality as well as its low price. It encountered a serious problem with rust which persisted until the late 1970s. Before the solution was found for this particular problem, it was fairly common for the vehicle to rust in half before it became old enough to have any mechanical problems.