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MM Retro Write-up: My Late Mother's 1994 Corolla Wagon
Since the great Coronavirus Lockdown of 2020 has so many of us living in our homes more or less like cocoons (I only go out on needed grocery or errand-trips now) I'm doing retro-reviews/write-ups of vehicles I've had previous experience with, instead of the usual new-vehicle reviews. The last couple I did, several of you all seemed to have liked, so I'll continue, at least for a while.
Today, I want to remember the first Toyota product in our family, an American-spec 1994 Corolla DX Wagon. Officially, it was not mine, but belonged to my late mother (God rest her soul). Poor lady, she had had so many unreliable hand-me-down used cars of 60s through 80s vintage, a couple of new poorly-built/unreliable ones like the 1982 Plymouth Horizon, and/or those without air-conditioning (which, during a D.C. summer, can be unpleasant to say the least). At her age, and with the tireless and unselfish service she did each day for the benefit of others, as a Chaplain's assistant at the local hospital, I felt that she deserved something better. And, in those days, with the possible exception of a few Honda products, it was hard to beat the basic reliability of a Corolla...which was also being marketed and sold by GM, with slightly different restyling, as the Chevy/Geo Prizm. She had had several hatchbacks, and was used to having four doors (for an occasional back-seat person) and a roomy cargo-area for carrying things. Unfortunately, the Prizm came only in a four-door sedan, she wanted a four-door lift-back....and Toyota clearly offered something that fit her needs.
So, after some discussion (she depended on me, of course, for auto-advice), we took off for Koons Tysons Toyota in the Northern Virginia D.C. suburbs.....home to some of the largest dealerships on the East Coast (Koons also has huge Ford, GM, and FCA dealerships close by). Not only did I know some of the Koons family, who owned a whole string of dealerships, from my church, but the salesperson who wrote us up turned out to be a guy I hadn't seen in nearly 30 years....I did my freshman year in high school with him back in the mid-60s. So, we spent a few minutes talking over old times, forgetting some the less-than-cordial moments we had had in school LOL...then got down to business. I walked up and down the big lot, did some searching, and found a nice baby-blue Corolla DX Wagon (American-spec wagons were sold only in the DX trim-level) with a medium-blue cloth interior...that was back when you could still get some real color-choices inside. It had the simple, reliable, easy-to-work-on N/A 1.8L in-line four (I did her oil-changes for her, in the driveway), a four-speed automatic, which, though with wide unresponsive ratios, cut down on the cruising-speed drone of the previous three-speed automatics, and, most important for her, factory air-conditioning. Although it was slightly longer in length than she would have liked (several inches longer than her previous Mercury Tracer hatchback), and she never got totally used to parking it while backing up, in general, it fit her needs extremely well, had the expected Toyota reliability, and she kept it until she passed away six years later. The only thing I didn't like about it was the somewhat tinny doors, which didn't close with the solid thunk that some of its competitors did...but my Mom didn't mind that.
As saintly as my late mother was, though (and she had previously worked as a bookkeeper, later helping people, as a volunteer, to prepare their taxes) she never, EVER was satisfied with ANY deal she herself made...or any of the ones I made on my own cars. No matter how good or bad the deal was in truth, she always thought she or I had paid too much....I learned to take it in stride, knowing that it was either that, spend endless hours trying to find a deal that she wouldn't complain about (which was probably not possible), or just do without a new vehicle for her...and IMO, she deserved a nice new car. I finally convinced her, knowing the family as I did who owned the dealership, and the sales-guy who wrote us up (he later got a promotion to Sales Manager) that this was probably as good a deal as we were going to get (the list price was around 16K, and we got what I thought was a reasonable discount. Indeed, the very next day, the press announced that the Japanese Yen had reached (for then) a all-time high against the American dollar, setting record-prices for Japanese imports....a factor that was out of the dealership's control.
That car became a real workhorse in our family....served my late mother faithfully until she passed away. As I said, I did the oil changes for her to save some money....my mom lived close by, only a few minutes' drive. I sometimes drove the car myself, as on Christmas Eve to church-services. Why her car?...it had dual front air-bags, unlike the car I was driving at the time (a 1990 Mazda Protege). Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, though not as bad as New Year's Eve, are notorious for drunks on the road, if one of them plowed into me.
Sadly, in 2000, my Mom, after so many hears of helping others in so many ways, got ill and needed help herself. She was diagnosed with cancer, which hospitalized her in the same facility where she had served so many others with the Chaplain, then a nursing home, where my brother drove both his own car and her Corolla regularly to see her, and, finally, when the cancer had spread to her brain and there was little more the doctors could do, to the hospice, where, just before Christmas of that year, she passed away. She had, in her will, named me as her Executor (my late father had passed away almost 15 years earlier), and I scrupulously took care of her estate and paperwork exactly as I had promised her, and according to Virginia law (that's another whole story, though...not one for this thread). My brother (who is still around) drove her Corolla off and on for a few months, and, since he already had his own car, we sold the Corolla right back to the very same dealership where we had bought it six years earlier, and split the money from it. I myself stayed at the dealership, after the re-sale, that afternoon, and watched while they put it through the washing/detailing/reconditioning process, answering questions the reconditioning guys had about it. A couple came out that very afternoon, looked at it, liked it, asked some questions about it (which, as the original owner there, on the spot, I answered)...and, from what I later heard, took it home the next day.
And, as Always....Happy Car-Memories
MM
Since the great Coronavirus Lockdown of 2020 has so many of us living in our homes more or less like cocoons (I only go out on needed grocery or errand-trips now) I'm doing retro-reviews/write-ups of vehicles I've had previous experience with, instead of the usual new-vehicle reviews. The last couple I did, several of you all seemed to have liked, so I'll continue, at least for a while.
Today, I want to remember the first Toyota product in our family, an American-spec 1994 Corolla DX Wagon. Officially, it was not mine, but belonged to my late mother (God rest her soul). Poor lady, she had had so many unreliable hand-me-down used cars of 60s through 80s vintage, a couple of new poorly-built/unreliable ones like the 1982 Plymouth Horizon, and/or those without air-conditioning (which, during a D.C. summer, can be unpleasant to say the least). At her age, and with the tireless and unselfish service she did each day for the benefit of others, as a Chaplain's assistant at the local hospital, I felt that she deserved something better. And, in those days, with the possible exception of a few Honda products, it was hard to beat the basic reliability of a Corolla...which was also being marketed and sold by GM, with slightly different restyling, as the Chevy/Geo Prizm. She had had several hatchbacks, and was used to having four doors (for an occasional back-seat person) and a roomy cargo-area for carrying things. Unfortunately, the Prizm came only in a four-door sedan, she wanted a four-door lift-back....and Toyota clearly offered something that fit her needs.
So, after some discussion (she depended on me, of course, for auto-advice), we took off for Koons Tysons Toyota in the Northern Virginia D.C. suburbs.....home to some of the largest dealerships on the East Coast (Koons also has huge Ford, GM, and FCA dealerships close by). Not only did I know some of the Koons family, who owned a whole string of dealerships, from my church, but the salesperson who wrote us up turned out to be a guy I hadn't seen in nearly 30 years....I did my freshman year in high school with him back in the mid-60s. So, we spent a few minutes talking over old times, forgetting some the less-than-cordial moments we had had in school LOL...then got down to business. I walked up and down the big lot, did some searching, and found a nice baby-blue Corolla DX Wagon (American-spec wagons were sold only in the DX trim-level) with a medium-blue cloth interior...that was back when you could still get some real color-choices inside. It had the simple, reliable, easy-to-work-on N/A 1.8L in-line four (I did her oil-changes for her, in the driveway), a four-speed automatic, which, though with wide unresponsive ratios, cut down on the cruising-speed drone of the previous three-speed automatics, and, most important for her, factory air-conditioning. Although it was slightly longer in length than she would have liked (several inches longer than her previous Mercury Tracer hatchback), and she never got totally used to parking it while backing up, in general, it fit her needs extremely well, had the expected Toyota reliability, and she kept it until she passed away six years later. The only thing I didn't like about it was the somewhat tinny doors, which didn't close with the solid thunk that some of its competitors did...but my Mom didn't mind that.
As saintly as my late mother was, though (and she had previously worked as a bookkeeper, later helping people, as a volunteer, to prepare their taxes) she never, EVER was satisfied with ANY deal she herself made...or any of the ones I made on my own cars. No matter how good or bad the deal was in truth, she always thought she or I had paid too much....I learned to take it in stride, knowing that it was either that, spend endless hours trying to find a deal that she wouldn't complain about (which was probably not possible), or just do without a new vehicle for her...and IMO, she deserved a nice new car. I finally convinced her, knowing the family as I did who owned the dealership, and the sales-guy who wrote us up (he later got a promotion to Sales Manager) that this was probably as good a deal as we were going to get (the list price was around 16K, and we got what I thought was a reasonable discount. Indeed, the very next day, the press announced that the Japanese Yen had reached (for then) a all-time high against the American dollar, setting record-prices for Japanese imports....a factor that was out of the dealership's control.
That car became a real workhorse in our family....served my late mother faithfully until she passed away. As I said, I did the oil changes for her to save some money....my mom lived close by, only a few minutes' drive. I sometimes drove the car myself, as on Christmas Eve to church-services. Why her car?...it had dual front air-bags, unlike the car I was driving at the time (a 1990 Mazda Protege). Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, though not as bad as New Year's Eve, are notorious for drunks on the road, if one of them plowed into me.
Sadly, in 2000, my Mom, after so many hears of helping others in so many ways, got ill and needed help herself. She was diagnosed with cancer, which hospitalized her in the same facility where she had served so many others with the Chaplain, then a nursing home, where my brother drove both his own car and her Corolla regularly to see her, and, finally, when the cancer had spread to her brain and there was little more the doctors could do, to the hospice, where, just before Christmas of that year, she passed away. She had, in her will, named me as her Executor (my late father had passed away almost 15 years earlier), and I scrupulously took care of her estate and paperwork exactly as I had promised her, and according to Virginia law (that's another whole story, though...not one for this thread). My brother (who is still around) drove her Corolla off and on for a few months, and, since he already had his own car, we sold the Corolla right back to the very same dealership where we had bought it six years earlier, and split the money from it. I myself stayed at the dealership, after the re-sale, that afternoon, and watched while they put it through the washing/detailing/reconditioning process, answering questions the reconditioning guys had about it. A couple came out that very afternoon, looked at it, liked it, asked some questions about it (which, as the original owner there, on the spot, I answered)...and, from what I later heard, took it home the next day.
And, as Always....Happy Car-Memories
MM