Rad Old Toyota Shitbox: A Patina E70 Corolla at the Hideaway
Spotted • The Hideaway • Toyota Corolla E70
Rad OldToyota Shitbox
Some cars you hunt for. Some are just sitting in the parking lot. This one was parked at the Hideaway, and it made my day.
Spotted at the Hideaway
No car show, no meet, no plan. Just a rad old Corolla sitting in the lot at the Hideaway like it owned the place.
It's a fourth-generation E70 sedan, the boxy one Toyota built from 1979 to 1983, wearing the quad round headlights, a chrome bumper and a hood with more rust than paint. The body sits somewhere between maroon and copper, depending on the light and how charitable you're feeling. Inside: tan everything. Outside: polished deep-dish wheels tucked under the fenders, which is the single best decision anyone has ever made for this car.
It is a shitbox. It is also perfect.
The Case for the Shitbox
The E70 matters more than it looks like it should. It was the last generation of Corolla sedan with rear-wheel drive before Toyota switched the family cars over to front-wheel drive. Small, light, simple, rear-drive: that's the same recipe that turned the AE86 into a legend a few years later.
Most of these went to the crusher decades ago. They were cheap commuter cars, driven into the ground and replaced without anybody shedding a tear. So when one survives, with the patina left alone and real wheels bolted on, somebody out there made a choice. They kept it. They drive it. They didn't over-restore it.
That's the move. Clean cars photograph well. Shitboxes have stories.
Verdict: Toyota People Are Weird
We've established this before. We keep forty-year-old commuter sedans alive out of spite and love in roughly equal parts, and we stop in parking lots to take photos of them. I'm one of those people. Whoever owns this Corolla is one too.
One photo. One car. Worth a whole post.
Is This Your Corolla?
If this is your car, I'd love to hear the story, and I can send you the photo as a full-resolution JPEG, RAW file or another format that works for you, edited or cropped for prints or social media.
Drive Fast · Take Chances · Never Lift.
