The first car up my own car a 1986 Toyota Cressida. I will admit this one will be more biased than any other review I do. Keep in mind I don't think Toyota has made great cars in some time, you will see my displeasure with the company in my up and coming review of the 2009 Toyota Corolla. On to the review.
Introduction: The 1986 Toyota Cressida is the first car I've ever seen since it was the car I grew up since...1986 sadly, my car is older than I am. I must admit this was not the best looking car you could buy in 1986 for roughly the same money. Back then many cars were square bricks like the Pontiac Bonneville or Ford LTD Crown Victoria. The Cressida was very square in style, the difference was unlike the previous 1981-1984 Cressida it had a more distinct Japanese presence. The giant tail lights and the massive amount of chrome characterizes this car. Unknown to many people is Toyota actually made the 1985-1988 Cressidas use the same power train as the 1982-1985 Supra, the suspension design is also practically the same as well. In the case of the suspension, its all down to the coils where the Cressida needed to be softer while the Supra harder. To anybody who wanted a Supra but didn't want to attract cops, the Cressida was practically the same other than offering more comfort, more practicality and happened to be slightly less expensive. The only downside to the sporting enthusiast is most Cressidas were never offered with a 5-speed manual transmission. Soon after 1988, Toyota established Lexus and decided the Cressida was not selling well enough for compete with the BMW 5-series and Mercedes 300 series due to the badge. Sadly the Cressida was dropped after 1992 and was the last Toyota sedan with RWD in Toyota's world wide market. Toyota North America believed the Cressida could be replaced by the FWD Camry based Avalon, in truth the real Cressida replacement resides in Japan called the Toyota Mark X.
Performance: The 3rd generation Toyota Cressidas were all powered by the same engine found on the Mk II Supra. This engine was an electronic fuel injected, dual overhead cam, straight 6 engine. The Cressida was given the last generation of this engine which gave the Cressida 156 hp and 168 lb.ft of torque, back then it was pretty competitive with similar engines provided by Mercedes and BMW. In terms of acceleration the Cressida today does not look very attractive, with the automatic transmission it can probably reach 0-100km/h at best 10 seconds, many claim the 5-speed manual allow the car to reach 9. While nothing significant today, its still reasonably powerful enough for the year 2009 and back in 1985 was pretty competitive considering many consider Toyota to be not very prestigious. Still for a luxury cruiser the engine despite coming from a Supra was relatively quiet, but very lively once you need the power. Driving with this engine today is still a joy since you can enjoy a leisurely drive while when your in the mood enjoy the spirited noise of this engine during more intense speeds. Being a straight six engine, it much more smoother than a V6 back then giving the feel a luxury car should.
My Score: 8/10 - Its a good engine back then, its slightly outdated today. Regardless it does exactly what an engine is supposed to do in a luxury cruiser, provide enough power, make it quiet during city driving and make it lively when the car needs to go quickly.
Handling: The Cressida is helped greatly by its sport car like handling. The Supra suspension allows the car to out handle many cars today, while its power is truly 1980s the handling is still better than year 2009 cars. The car only weighs about 3100-3200 lbs which is much lighter than many mid-sized cars which are closer to 3300-3500 lbs. The steering wheel Toyota fitted to this Cressida is very well weighted, heavy during lower speeds while fairly light at higher speeds. This is one of the few Toyotas where feel is very important, I love taking this car around corners since it does them so well and due to the feel of the wheel I know how much control I have. The brakes work very well which is very much needed for handling. This is one of Toyota's best chassis, its such a shame it isn't continued. Its not too often you can find a luxury car that satisfies a young person's crave for cornering performance. If there was any weakness here it came down to the poor choice of tires Toyota made with mediocre Dunlops and the OEM shocks Toyota gave the Cressida were too soft. Replacing the shocks with more stiffer ones and having good tires fixes the only flaws the car had here in very stock form.
My Score: 10/10 - Toyota can make a mainstream car feel great and handle great, they just chose not to do it on their current lineup. The Cressida's handling is so good that you feel FWD is inferior. Cars are rarely balanced this well with luxury and performance.
Interior: The biggest difference between Cressida and Supra comes down here. The Cressida was Toyota's luxury flagship and was offered with the latest Toyota had to offer. The Cressida was power operated in several areas except the seats which I actually prefer(power operated seats are too slow moving and add ridiculous amounts of weight), and air conditioning is standard in all Cressidas. This car came with an automatic climate control unit, most of the time it serves its purpose well particularly during colder days, its just a tad slow during hotter days. The plastics inside are of high quality and are capable of lasting until the car's lifetime. Several 3rd generation Cressidas were offered the digital dashboard, this meant your speedometer was easy to read(due to time delay) and every gauge was more accurate than a needle constantly in motion. The radio is a Technics unit which only has a cassette player, but the stock system provides good sound. If you don't mind the cassette, then you have no need to rid of the stock system. The cloth seat material used sofa material making it very soft and comfortable. In terms of visibility, its excellent since only the C-pillar is medium in size(being smaller than any new car), the rest are very thin. The only option Toyota offered was the ability to have a sun roof. The Cressida is also one of the few Toyotas in the 1980s capable of seating taller people with comfort. As for build quality, each Cressida was made in Japan and in 23 years only 1 squeak and 1 somewhat loose panel(beaten from wind). Everthing else is solid.
My Score: 10/10 - There is no nonsense with this interior, everything you'll ever need for a car interior.
Styling: As I mentioned before the car's styling is probably the low point of this car. Its very boxy and among other Japanese cars is not easy to distinguish leading many to believe its a Camry. The upsides however are the chrome trim that is placed literally everywhere Toyota could put on without painting the whole car with chrome. Nothing today has nearly as much chrome trim as this particularly Cressida. The car's design seemed to emphisize function over form.
My Score: 6/10 - A basic 1980s boxy Japanese car with some nice jewerly.
Value for money: The Cressida is not a cheap car to begin with. All the Supra items and the high quality of the interior do come at a price. Thankfully due to its Toyota badge it was never allowed to be expensive to the levels of the German competition. If you needed a 4-door Supra, the Cressida was cheaper than a Supra. Toyota also never bothered to give trim levels to Cressidas in North America you only had three options, wagon or sedan, sun roof for your sedan, or roof rack for your wagon. A lot of the high quality also goes into the car's excellent reputation for reliability. All you sacrifice in this car is on style, everything else is probably better value than the competition.
My Score: 10/10 - In the 1980s nothing was as good of a value as a Cressida. It takes all the good points of driving cars while stuffing this into a luxury package. BMW and Mercedes offered this but they were much more expensive, and the US cars while larger never were luxurious enough nor offered the handling qualities.
Overall: 44/50 - One of Toyota's finest cars, one of Toyota's best definitions of what a flagship should be.
Good review.
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