This calendar year I prescribe ten years Auto Motor Klassiek. During this period I met many people and made reports with them and their classics. In the near future I will share a number of memories from the past ten years with you, and I will randomly highlight a number of cars with which we went out. Today the focus is on a car that surprised me the most over the past ten years: the Toyota Corona of the Strikwerda family.
Anyone who pronounces the name Strikwerda in the north of the Netherlands can easily make the link with Toyota. The Strikwerda family built up a beautiful Toyota dealer network in Frisian, and their love for the Japanese brand also forms a bridge to Toyota's past. I knew that Paulus Strikwerda had owned a Toyota Corona RT40 for a while, the car was no stranger to me. I saw the car several times, including during a rally from Bakkeveen to Sexbierum. And the desire to make a report with this Toyota was alive. This happened in April 2022.
Ron Moës, Jan Hendriks, photographer Wouter Oud and I gathered in Dronrijp. The Toyota was waiting for us there. The weather conditions were beautiful, and the Toyota was ready for a reporting drive through the province. I didn't know exactly what to expect from the car. Perhaps the surprise is already in school. The Corona didn't miss a beat during the day that the four-in-hand team traveled with two Toyotas in Fryslân. Two indeed, because Ron and Jan followed us with the former's Camry.
The Toyota drove exceptionally well and was remarkably comfortable. The 1.5 engine in the front turned out to be able to push the Corona forward considerably and to have a lot of flexibility. This Corona - a late example from the model generation - was an extremely pleasant car to drive, both on the highway and on the beautiful rural routes. He showed retrospectively why he played a pioneering role during the years when Toyota was still small in the Netherlands, and gained favor with the buyers of the time.
That was a long time ago, and along the way we noticed what that meant several times. The car attracted a lot of attention during the beautiful spring day. Cyclists, walkers, people on the water and fellow road users looked not once, but twice to see which car they saw. Ron and Jan later said that a man on a motor mower was so distracted that he forgot what he was doing and casually took his beautiful flower bed with him when he trimmed his grass. We missed that moment, but it must have been hilarious.
During stops, several passers-by spoke to us. They didn't know what make or type of car they saw, talked about a design that had something Italian or French in it, and were surprised when we told them that they were standing face to face with a Toyota. And a German wondered in amazement: Was it for a car? Logical, because the German car market only opened its gates to the Japanese manufacturer in 1971, and this Corona was never sold new there.
We experienced one of the most beautiful moments of the day at Joure. After the last photo session we drove on the A7, we had started our way back to the rightful owner. We were overtaken by a couple in an open Ferrari California. The driver paused for a moment, honked his horn and gave a salute of honor, and his wife waved exuberantly at us and made a small cheering gesture.
Then something happened to me. Behind my sunglasses I felt a few tears prickling. This was more than a greeting. This was a huge honorary salute, which retroactively put the historical criticism of everything to do with Japanese cars into perspective. A salute that was more than just a compliment. It was a tribute to the time when Toyota fought its way into the market and laid the foundation for the Japanese manufacturer's contemporary sales successes in the Netherlands against conventional storms. And that history was recognized retroactively. It evoked a feeling that matched a beautiful day. A day on which the Toyota Corona emerged as the most surprising report car of the past ten years.
You will find the link to the original impression of the reporting day here.
Rust formation was a well-known problem well into the 70s, and not only at Toyota. My 20 Corolla KE1974 also had these problems. Tercal from 1980 was rust-free.
Looks a lot like the Isuzu Bellet from the sixties to the early seventies.
My father bought a Crown in 1968. Unfortunately, Toyota was also experiencing problems with Monday morning cars and the garage was not very familiar with maintenance.
After less than 2 years, the Crown started to rust in the middle of the roof and in the middle of the trunk lid.
Unfortunately, after 80.000 km and barely 4 years old, it was scrapped.