Tested: 1988 Toyota Corolla Gets it Done

From the May 1988 issue of Car and Driver.

Hurrah for the buyer’s market: rock-bottom prices, unlimited choice, cutthroat competition, and salespersons who treat you like “Let’s Make a Deal” contestants. Short of free floor mats and a comprehen­sive lifetime warranty, what more can a new-car buyer ask for?

Well, how about a Cray supercomputer to whittle all this freedom of choice down to manageable proportions? If you’re in the market for basic transportation, your task is particularly daunting. We know, be­cause we’ve spent the past few weeks sur­veying the new-car landscape from the driver’s seat of an everyday Toyota Corol­la, and we found that it’s hell out there on bargain-basement row. To wit:

• There are a half-dozen or more size categories below the $12,000-base-price threshold.
• If you have somehow narrowed your fo­cus to the Corolla’s class, you have only begun: there are nearly twenty worthy competitors to consider.
• Even in this class, the plain-Jane automobile is a thing of the past. The Nissan Sentra lineup, for example, comprises 22 different body-style, trim, and powertrain combinations.
• With discount financing and manufac­turer rebates, it’s nearly impossible to de­termine the price of any new car until you’re ready to write the check.

The decisions may be agonizing, but we can attest that the basic-transportation experience—at least in a Toyota Corolla—is less painful than you probably imagine. This is hardly the same Corolla that put Toyota on its feet in the American market twenty years ago. Under the hood, what used to be a 60-horse wheezer has evolved into a 90-hp, sixteen-valve four-cylinder engine fully capable of impress­ing the most blasé oil checker. Today’s Corolla offers a fifth speed in its gearbox, enough room for four American-spec pas­sengers, carpeting on the floor, padding in the seats, and three attractive body styles (plus the FX models). In other words, nearly every trace of entry-level stigma has vanished. The Corolla has en­tered the realm of real automobiles.

Its price has followed suit. In the era of the falling dollar and rising competition, the new-for-1988 sixth iteration of the Co­rolla theme is fighting to stay below $10,000. Our base-model test car lost the battle: equipped with but four optional extras, it wore a sticker price of $10,593. If you can do without any of the trimmings, the cheapest Corolla you can buy will still cost you nearly nine grand.

For that not-so-paltry sum you get a tidy four-door, three-box package that, if you squint, looks something like a four-fifths Audi 5000. The shape is clean and aerody­namically streamlined, at least visually (the drag coefficient is a mediocre 0.36). The grille, the bumpers, and the filler panel between the taillamps are modestly finished, and Toyota’s designers just said no to chrome plating: the door handles, the window trim, the mirror housings, and the wipers are all flat black. With a mini­mum of nameplates and exterior decoration, the Corolla permits the metal sculp­tors’ talent to shine through.

The same design ethic rules the interi­or, producing furnishings that are simple but not austere: an attractively sculptured instrument panel, tweed cloth on the seats and the door panels, tight-fitting trim, and absolutely no brightly painted bare metal. The carpeting may not be ankle-deep, but it fits well and looks durable enough to survive several owners. The only evidence of interior penny-pinching is a few blank holes in the base model’s instrument clus­ter, which relies more on warning lamps than on proper gauges. Most unfortunate of all is the lack of a tachometer: some of the joy of having a spirited sixteen-valve engine underhood is irretrievably lost.

There is a consolation prize, however. Buried at the bottom of the Corolla’s cen­ter-console stack—way down beneath the heater controls, an open storage bin, and the ashtray—is one of those little endear­ments that for some odd reason are found only in Japanese cars: the most ingenious cup holder we’ve ever seen. Draw it from its storage slot and the compact device, barely one cup wide, automatically unfurls two hinged fingers—one to each side—to form cup receptacles. After you’ve slaked your thirst, slide the panel back into the console and the fingers retract. The action is neat enough to be a NASA design.

Other interior features are similarly well executed. The light and wiper switches are stalk-mounted and easy to operate. The radio knobs are high on the dash, so you can keep one eye on the road while you dial in Whitesnake. The heater controls are also close at hand, and high enough that they’re not hidden behind the shifter. The ignition switch is a push­and-twist design; no secret button frus­trates key removal.

Although the new Corolla rides on the same 95.7-inch wheelbase as its predeces­sor, a four-inch increase in overall length has done wonders for its utility quotient. With 96 cubic feet of passenger and cargo volume, this car is stretching the bound­aries of the subcompact class. Its rear seat is particularly spacious, thanks to a low­-profile floor tunnel and plenty of head­room; in addition, the front seats’ tracks are set wide enough to allow feet to slide underneath, and the front seatbacks are hollowed out to enlarge rear kneeroom. The rear seat is molded to provide opti­mum support for two passengers, but a third can squeeze in and buckle up with­out permanent injury. The trunk is large in all three dimensions, flat of floor, and easy on the sacroiliac, thanks to a bumper­-level lift-over height.

That’s most of the good news. The new Corolla also earns a few high marks while on the move, but if your heart is set on a bargain-basement sports sedan, maybe you should turn the page right now. This Corolla’s priorities are value, utility, com­fort, and reliability. The flings of driving joy permitted by its strait-laced personal­ity are few and far between.

Its powertrain, at least, is essentially faultless. The twin-cam engine loves to be lashed with the throttle and the gearbox, and it barely murmurs in protest when you ask it to cruise at what must be horren­dous rpm. (Without a tach, who knows?) The ratios of the five-speed transmission are well spaced, and the shift linkage is one of the best we’ve encountered. You can select the gear of your choice—includ­ing reverse—with one pinkie’s friction atop the knob.

The only remarkable aspect of the Co­rolla’s chassis design is that, thanks to a high front roll center, the engineers were able to tune the suspension without a front anti-roll bar. Each corner of the car has a strut and a coil spring. A control arm helps to locate each front wheel, and a combination of two lateral links, one trail­ing link, and an anti-roll bar braces each rear wheel. The engineers took special care to deaden mechanical noise and to stiffen the body structure: sturdy subframes are in place at both ends, five care­fully tuned mounts support the powertrain, and the firewall is an absor­bent sandwich of asphalt material between two sheets of steel.

These efforts, together with nearly flush windows, create such a calm and qui­et interior mood that you can cruise the Corolla at 90 mph for hours without en­raging your mother-in-law. The downside is that subframes and steel sandwiches are heavy. Our modestly equipped test car weighed 2312 pounds, which put us at a disadvantage whenever some smart aleck pulled alongside in a new Honda Civic to test our mettle. With a zero-to-60 time of 11.3 seconds, the Corolla isn’t much of a street racer.

Our cornering and braking reports are also discouraging. With narrow wheels wrapped in skinny all-season tires, the Co­rolla simply doesn’t have much dry-road traction. Bend it into a corner with verve and it rolls over like a motorhome in a gale. We measured a skidpad limit of 0.66 g and a 70-to-zero stopping distance of 240 feet—two of the poorest performances we’ve seen from any new car in several years. You can get 70-series tires and wid­er aluminum wheels on a four-door Co­rolla, but only if you step up to the LE model, which starts at $10,148.

Corollas of the four-door, base-trim persuasion are cruisers, not chargers. What they do, they do well. Their weighty structure, skinny tires, and mildly tuned suspensions deliver fine straight-line sta­bility and a pleasant ride under most con­ditions. Of course, if you’re looking for a twin-cam-to-go at half the usual price, your ship is not yet at the pier. But if all you need is a transpo-box to relieve the family Bimmer of kid hauling and grocery get­ting, go ahead and reach for that check­book with confidence.

Counterpoint

Every now and again, I get into an automobile, drive it a few miles, and say to myself, “Here’s a solid piece of basic transportation.” I said that to myself about the new Toyota Corolla. Or thought it, anyway.

Mind you, it’s not a car that I would buy, but that’s because I am not a person who needs a small four-door se­dan. That isn’t the Corolla’s fault. The car offers sane, sensible, well-ordered transportation that seems made to order for three groups: young folks on a limit­ed budget, middle-aged folks on a limit­ed budget, and old folks on a limited budget.

For its $8898 base price, the Corolla delivers a simple, stylish exterior and an interior that’s pleasant to occupy. The seats sit right and the shifter shifts right. You can see out and you can reach things. On the extended freeway run the Corolla maintains 70 with a minimum of noise for a car its size.

The Corolla is one more shining ex­ample that “econobox” need not be a synonym for “Nyquil.” —William Jeanes

The previous-generation Toyota Corol­la was an econobox that serious drivers could appreciate. I rented one a few years ago during my honeymoon in Ha­waii, and its competence astonished me. Although modestly powered and softly suspended, the old Corolla performed so enthusiastically and responded so ac­curately to my commands that not even the tightly wound roads of Kauai’s Grand Canyon could trip it up.

The new model is a lot less happy in its work. The sixteen-valve engine provides improved performance and smooth­ness, the restyled body looks sleek and contemporary, and the new suspension offers an admirably soft ride. But the new car is reluctant to explore the limits of its performance. At the first sign of a hard comer, it seems to fall over on its bump stops, its tires squealing for mer­cy. It executes even mild maneuvers with a sloppy sluggishness. The old Corolla was an enthusiastic driver’s eager part­ner, but the new one is little more than a hired hand. —Csaba Csere

I subscribe to the view that inexpensive cars don’t have to look inexpensive. It doesn’t cost any more to make a good-­looking car than a lumpy one, so why punish entry-level buyers with scarlet letters that proclaim to the world that they don’t have the money for high­-ticket rides? Apparently Toyota feels the same way. The new Corolla isn’t breath­takingly handsome, in the Taurus or Audi idiom, but at least it looks as if it costs a couple of thousand more than its sticker price. It’s one of the few lowball cars you’re not embarrassed to park in your driveway.

In addition to looks, respectable ma­chinery is in residence. The car has a zingy motor, an excellent shifter with a nice selection of gears, a decent interior, and a suspension that provides both ac­ceptable handling and a comfortable ride. I’d like to see a thicker steering wheel, bigger tires, and more instru­ments, but that’s a pretty short wish list. Almost any other manufacturer would kill for an entry-level car this good. —Tony Assenza

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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com