The Toyota Corona: A True Classic

The Toyota Corona must certainly be regarded as one of the best looking and longest lasting makes of car in the history of road use. The vehicle started manufacture during the years spanning 1957 and lasted up until 2002, passing through a number of different models along the way as it valiantly tried to adapt to the changing of the times.

  

Aside from the Toyota Corona's striking good looks, the Corona's various models were also considered to be much more fuel efficient as opposed to their American and European counterparts and enticed prospective car owners with the enviable choice of owning a much larger car (the Corona) but at the same cost and expenses of its smaller sibling the Toyota Corolla, which came soon after it.

Perhaps the single most elegant model in the line is the Toyota Corona Mark II, which was produced by the company from 1972 to 1976. There is something quintessentially seventies about this car, with its combination of effortless cool with an endearingly chunky shape that gives this car model a genuine period charm. If it is not already recognised as an iconic car of the decade, then it most certainly deserves to be considered as such.



The original model of the Corona is also a classic, of course, with its sweet buggy-like shape, but one which seems generally more dated and of-its-time. In the late seventies the car became rather more square and hard-looking, a bit boxy and hard-edged and having a lot of planes and edges with the car taking on something of a tough guy image which perhaps doesn't fit as well with the general style of the line.

The eighties brought with them a subtle modification of this design which kept the basic feel but made it far more sleek, taking the Corona back to the elegance of the early-to-mod seventies. As the car continued to be redesigned into the twenty-first century its hard edges and boxy design elements were increasingly smoothed down, resulting in the kind of rounded car that is still dominant to this very day.



The Toyota Corona still has its admirers today. A number of people do their best to keep vintage cars fit for the road, and while it may be easier to search for a Toyota Rav4 online than to find a good quality Toyota Corona from the earlier days of the car's life, it should not come as a great surprise if you still see one of them cruising the highways and byways now and again.