Junkyard Find: 1980 Toyota Corolla SR5 Liftback Coupe
Toyota sold the E70 Corolla in the United States for the 1980 through 1983 model years, and it was the final rear-wheel-drive-only generation of the Corolla. We saw a discarded 1983 AE72 Corolla wagon in California over the summer, and now it's the turn of a sporty TE72 Corolla Liftback that I spotted recently in a Denver-area boneyard.
*Ed. note -- I moved JF around this week for mundane scheduling reasons. It should return to Monday mornings next week.
This was one of the more expensive new Corollas Americans could buy in 1980, with the SR5 version starting at $5,648 (about $22,890 in 2024 dollars). The base two-door sedan version was just $4,198 ($17,013 after inflation).
The smaller, cheaper and generally more miserable Tercel was being marketed as the Corolla Tercel at the time, in order to take advantage of the Corolla's image, but the two cars were essentially unrelated.
The SR-5 trim-level name started out being used on Corollas and Hiluxes in the middle 1970s, and it stood for "Sport Runabout 5-Speed" at first. Toyota still uses the SR5 name (without the dash) to this day.
In 1980, American Toyota shoppers could choose their new Corolla in sedan (two- and four-door), wagon, hardtop coupe and liftback coupe. The hardtop SR-5 coupe with Black Package was at the top of the US-market Corolla pyramid that year.
The only engine available in the 1980-1982 North American Corolla was the 1.8-liter pushrod 3T-C four-cylinder. For 1983, the E70 Corolla got the SOHC 4A-C engine.
75 horsepower, which was good enough (by 1980 standards) for a car that weighed just 2,090 pounds. That's about a half-ton less than the current Corolla, by the way.
I found paperwork in the car that showed it was still driving until the late 2000s.
The base Corolla got a four-speed manual transmission as standard equipment, but the Deluxe and SR-5 cars got five-speeds. The "5" in the SR-5 designation still meant "5-speed" in 1980, so you had to get the Deluxe if you wanted the optional automatic.
It has an early-1980s-style AM/FM/cassette deck with auto-stop, mounted in a marine radio housing atop the transmission tunnel. Somehow this radio managed to get through the 1980s without being stolen, which is impressive.
This car even has the very expensive air conditioning option.
Remember this style of aftermarket chrome-disc wheels?
The interior is well-roasted but more or less intact.
Toyota didn't go to six-digit odometers in North America until a few years after this car was sold, so we can't know the final mileage tally. I think that if it was still being driven at age 30, the final reading could be 371,192 or even 471,192 (I found a 1980 Datsun 210 wagon in the same yard with 445,440 miles about six months back).
This Garfield air freshener may have been with the car since it was new.
It's got what it takes to make you feel like you're sitting on top of the world.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
1980 Toyota Corolla in Colorado wrecking yard.
[Images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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When I was in middle school in the late 80s, two teachers both had this exact model in yellow. They both had over 100,000 miles on them and plan to run them for a long time.
Note that two of the digits on the odometer (both '1's) are not aligned with the other numbers. We were told years ago that this indicates either that the odometer has turned over (in this instance probably twice) or the odometer has been 'tampered' with.