2007-2008 Honda Fit

I don't know why small cars often get a bad rep in North America, it seems bigger cars are always seen in a better light. If it weren't for the safety issues associated with small cars I don't think they look that bad considering they're light, efficient, affordable(within reason) and can be good to drive. Maybe its because American car companies in the past made a huge mess with their small cars attempting to encourage car buyers to pay more for bigger cars.


Introduction: The Honda Fit is a relatively new addition to Honda's lineup for North America. Previously Honda has never competed in this subcompact segment leaving it up to Toyota and its Tercel against mainly Korean competition which back then was really weak. In 2006 Honda decided to bring over the Fit over even though its been in production since 2001, likely due to the fact fuel prices were soaring. Unknown to North America, Honda has actually been in the subcompact market for a long time with cars like the City, the Logo, and my favourite of the bunch the Beat(a rare layout being a mid-engined kei car) however they were mostly available only in Japan. The Fit has had quite a success in the European markets where its known as the Jazz. This version of the Honda Fit would have a short North American lifespan due to the fact Honda already planned the new Fit to be introduced by 2009.

I must be honest, I actually did want to try this little car out to see if it was better than Toyota's entry the Yaris. I've already driven the Civic from before and I didn't really think it was all too deserving of its praise, but I knew that this Fit should suit my tastes a lot more due to it being geared for Europe and Japan instead of America.


Performance: The 1.5L 4-cylinder engine Honda has equipped the Fit produces 109 hp and 105 lb.ft of torque which so far is the lowest powered engine of all the cars I've reviewed. This engine does have Honda's famed VTEC system in it and actually is a reasonable engine for this sort of car. The goal was not power but rather adequate power and fuel efficiency, this engine is considered large for Europe and Japan which both allow the use of 660 cc engines(basically 0.6L) but is considered very small for North America. Having driven this car with this engine, it actually was pretty peppy and doesn't have the drone of say the awful Magnum with its V6. All things considered this is actually a good engine so long as power is not a huge requirement. Its not brilliant for highway driving but it can actually do it, I cannot say the same for some cars with bigger and more powerful engines.

My Score: 8/10 - It doesn't have much power, but it doesn't really need to. Great fuel efficiency, reasonable performance and not much noise is all that's needed for a city car.

Handling: The Fit has to be one of Honda's best efforts when it comes to making a car handle. This is precisely why I like small cars, the low amount of weight equipped with a suspension that is geared to handle well makes these cars quite fun. The steering wheel was weighted correctly, the handling is very good and the car remained rather stable in the corners. I cannot say the same for Honda's other cars but for the Fit, I enjoyed its cornering ability and thus will give it top marks.

My Score: 10/10 - Great handling, properly weighted steering wheel and the ride quality doesn't really suffer. All in all this is why the car is called Fit, weight is actually not a problem for this car.


Interior: The Fit is one of the best of the subcompacts today to feature an interior worthy of being in a larger more expensive car. The layout of the dashboard is very simple and not very complicated and despite being an interior designed in 2001...it looks better than several cars with interiors designed from 2007 to now. It actually fits neatly with Honda's current more advanced styling of their new interiors. The plastics on the Fit are of reasonable quality which is hard to say these days. The seats in the Fit are quite comfortable and due to the way the car is shaped even a fairly tall person can drive a Fit without major issues so its reasonably spacious. Lastly they're built in Japan, I have yet to see a Fit that was built incorrectly, the fit and finish were good.

My Score: 9/10 - A very good, spacious interior for a small car. I would have liked to see more aluminum instead of plastic but there's little to complain about this car's interior.

Styling: The Honda Fit is not one of Honda's more revolutionary styling cases. Its rather similar to what Honda was doing in the early portion of 2000 and thus its not all that interesting to look at. The head lights are are more aggressive but from the rear its pretty plain. All in all the Fit is pretty modest, it looks pretty good for a modest looking car but its certainly not something significant or even interesting.

My Score: 7/10 - A reasonable looking 5-door hatchback, no real interesting styling cues unfortunately.

Value for money: Everything is looking great so far, you got a good interior for a fun but fuel efficient vehicle. Sadly the Fit does have a problem, its quite expensive. Every single car it competes against is cheaper and every time you go up a trim level for a Fit it starts looking very expensive even more so than the next level up compacts. You can easily spend more than 20K on a Honda Fit but you don't get a bigger engine or a excellent package to make it a car worth more than 20K. The Honda Fit also is stuck with only a hatchback version, compared to its rivals its very limited in versatile options. With this high cost, you need to hope the car lasts for a very long time to make it all worth biting the high initial costs.

My Score: 4/10 - Very expensive subcompact car, surprisingly poor value versus its rivals and not very flexible with options.

Overall: 38/50 - A great small car, clearly my favourite of all the subcompacts. Its only truly hindered by being expensive. You need to convince yourself that it truly is worth the money to suffer the high initial costs. If you can, you get a very good car in the end.

2006 Nissan Sentra

I think I'm near the end of my 2006 car reviews since many of the cars I've driven are from 2007-2008.


Introduction: The Nissan Sentra has been in Nissan's lineup for a very long time. Before the use of the Sentra name, the previous car was called a Datsun 210 which was RWD. Since the introduction of the Sentra in 1982, the car has since become FWD. Its main competitor was always the Toyota Corolla, eventually the Honda Civic would also become a target car. The Sentra does not appear to be as popular or sell as well as the Civic or Corolla. Nevertheless Nissan does have a performance version of the Sentra called the SE-R Spec V.

As for my take, the Sentra has rarely been a car I ever thought much about. Very few of them ever looked interesting and very few have ever had anything interesting to even discuss. These days with the 2007 version there is the use of the CVT gearbox, however the 5th generation which I'm reviewing today does not have this gearbox.


Performance: The Sentra I drove only had the 1.8L 4-cylinder engine producing 126 hp and 129 lb.ft of torque. This engine doesn't really have much interesting characteristics, its rather competitive in terms of performance but it wasn't all that noisy. Yet it is not a very memorable engine for either good or bad. I guess I can say its average.

My Score: 5/10 - Its an average engine, nothing special

Handling: Once again the Sentra didn't really show any sort of feel that you'd get from a more exciting car. It certainly was not nearly as dull as a Buick but despite the reasonably weighted wheel, the car is rather average at cornering. I'm kind of at a loss to describe it...other than it not being very memorable which is hard considering many cars do show their strengths and weaknesses here.

My Score: 6/10 - Average handling, decently weighted wheel


Interior: Ah, I remember a lot more here. The Sentra like much of its characteristics so far show its pretty generic and the interior here remains much the same. Nothing in particular is all that fancy or even remotely interesting, its just as you'd expect it to be in any car. Seats are rather standard and the ride comfort is decent. This however is a time when the Sentras still contained roll up windows and was not as well equipped as Korean cars are. The most memorable thing about the Sentra however is the build quality. For some reason Nissans that are built in Mexico are built pretty badly. The last time I was in one of these Sentras there were several panel gaps all over the interior as if nothing fit. Considering that not much has changed with newer Versas and Sentras, I can safely conclude this is the biggest problem the Sentra has other than being...well average. Very few were built well.

My Score: 3/10 - Generic interior let down badly by very poor build quality

Styling: The original 5th generation Sentra looked rather generic and really boring. The year I'm reviewing had a styling change replacing the generic front end with a much more interesting one. The grille particularly is changed giving it a more unique look instead of a typical car. The grille goes well with the shape of the car and is a more positive step than playing safe.

My Score: 6/10 - Standard looking car with a nice looking grille

Value for money: The Sentra was always cheaper than the Corolla and the Civic but its not the best equipped car either making not as good of a value as the Korean entries. There is also the problem of build quality compared to the Canadian built Corolla and Civic, the Mexican made Sentra looks very poor built. Regardless if you trashed your interior then having loose panels wouldn't matter too much. Aside from build quality the car was reasonably solid and thus you do get a Japanese branded vehicle for less money than the major players. So its a good value to that degree.

My Score: 7/10 - Despite its faults it does end up being cheaper and better value than its Japanese competitors. Not nearly as great in value as the Koreans but still worth considering if you want to save some dough.

Overall: 27/50 - Basically an average car with pretty good value but suffering primarily with very poor build quality.

2007 Dodge Magnum SE

Ah my first review of a car that has been discontinued for good, the Dodge Magnum.


Introduction: The Dodge Magnum was introduced in 2005 as part of Chrysler's LX platform the only one of Chrysler's platforms using Mercedes Benz components and pieces. The original Dodge Magnum was a replacement of the old Charger essentially a short lived 2-door car on Chrysler's B-platform. The current version however is a station wagon version of Chrysler's flagship 300. Dodge has given the Magnum 4 different engines ranging from 2 V6 units to 2 V8 units including Chrysler's famed HEMI V8. Unfortunately for Chrysler the Magnum has not sold well and eventually was discontinued in 2008.

When I first saw this gigantic beast, I was rather eager to drive it due to it being from the LX platform and how cool it looked. I was slightly skeptical as well since I also drove the Sebring that day and that was an unhappy memory(I will around to this one and explain why, trust me). During this time I loved everything about RWD and believed that whatever Chrysler did to this car that my faith in RWD would not be shaken.


Performance: Oh boy...I only driven the SE version meaning I got the car with the 2.7L V6 that produces 190 hp and 190 lb.ft of torque. Let me put it this way...I've never driven such a slow car, unlike the Fusion which felt slow...this car was slow. Most people could at best do 0-100 km/h in 11.7 seconds...that's pathetic. The engine sounded awful for a V6 unit...and guess what...its used on quite a few Chryslers. A big reason why this car accelerates so poorly is its about 4000 lbs...the engine is nowhere near adequate and should have not been an option. The man in a Toyota Prius can accelerate much quicker than this heavy beast with a weak heart. If you must buy one of these, it better be a V8.

My Score: 1/10 - The engine sucked, this is the slowest accelerating car I've driven, I hated it.

Handling: The Magnum is a RWD car so it must handle well...right? I'm afraid not, due to the fact the car is 4000 lbs this its unable to handle very well with the suspension Chrysler fitted to it along with the Mercedes bits. It just didn't have any agility and you could really feel the weight, its just miserable at attempting a corner. Being a Chrysler, the wheel isn't weighted properly and was rather light meaning it gave little feedback as your miserably going around the corner.

My Score: 1/10 - None of the cornering advantages of RWD apply here, this whale has a hard time going from corner to corner.


Interior: Things still don't look good here, the interior of the Magnum is pretty appalling. All of the plastics are of very low quality, you can just see they didn't even bother to use smooth plastic and notice how they look exactly like recycled budget school chairs due to their texture. The ergonomics of the car are also pretty poor, due to my height I need to sit up close...problem is the turn signal stalk is so low my knee prevents it from signaling left. You can see from the picture how the stalk is angled down 45 degrees. Who in earth thought this was a good idea? They're mostly all black too with cheap aerosol painted plastic pretending to be aluminum which always looks disgusting. The stereo is a standard Chrysler unit which is not very sophisticated but nonetheless doesn't look good or sound good enough to warrant keeping. The car is pretty spacious but you don't have good seats to sit in.

My Score: 2/10 - Cheap plastic, ugly aerosol paint job, so-so stereo, dumb ergonomics...you can clearly tell they had no stylist do this interior.

Styling: Finally something the car can be happy about. The styling of this Dodge is pretty aggressive and was clearly inspiration for the Charger. This looks like the car that would be suitable for a cool bad guy's getaway car. This would also be a pretty scary looking cop car should the car ever need a station wagon. I do like the styling, the rear kind of gives it a hearse image but other than that its actually something done well.

My Score: 8/10 - Aggressive, intimidating and yet still pretty cool looking despite the side profile making it seem like a hearse.

Value for money: The Dodge Magnum is not a good value for your money unless you really need a very large station wagon. The awful interior, the awful performance and the awful handling should have driven you nuts and forcing you to forget this car. There are a few wagons out there while not as big, are certainly much better cars than a Magnum like the Mazda6 or Subaru Legacy/Outback.

My Score: 2/10 - The only good value you get for your money is if you happen to need a gigantic station wagon.

Overall: 14/50 - If it weren't for the styling, this car would be a total miserable failure. It was discontinued for a reason, unlike what I've said about Ford and Hyundai...Chrysler hasn't learned.

2007 Ford Fusion SE

I can't believe I already failed to post a review yesterday. Once again today will be a twofer starting with the 2007 Ford Fusion.


Introduction: The Ford Fusion was introduced in 2005 as Ford's newest vehicle for the important midsized car market. Ford used to use the Taurus for this important segment which originally sold very well to tie the Honda Accord for the #1 most sold car(not vehicle since the F-150 truck dominated this). Unfortunately Ford never continued with the success of the first Taurus and allowed the car to age eventually losing even the Taurus' iconic jellybean shape for conservative. Ford decided to use the Fusion name for this new midsized car even though a completely different car uses the same name in Europe. The Ford Fusion is the first of the cars introduced by Ford of America to use the 3-bar grille. The Fusion saw enough success to be redesigned for the year 2010.

Now for my side, I was not all that excited to drive one of these vehicles since I never heard anything significant about the Fusion other than it being better than Ford's past vehicle attempts. Considering how badly Ford allowed its car lineup to decline this was a pretty low bar to settle. Still, the Ford Fusion could not possibly be worse than some of the other American cars I've driven so I was ready to see if Ford could actually challenge Toyota and Honda for that important midsized segment.


Performance: The Fusions I drove had the 2.3L Duratec 23 engine that produce 160hp and 156 lb.ft of torque. Well...I must say the Fusion unfortunately with its 4-cylinder was very underpowered. The engine selection was not suitable for this car since you can easily tell it was sluggish. I heard this engine was pretty much the same one used for the Mazda6 but that engine was far more suitable for that car than this engine is for the Fusion. Most clocked the 0-100 time of the Fusion to be 9.2 seconds, it doesn't feel that quick sadly. Since you think the car is slower than it is, you'll be hearing some of the drone this engine has to offer and its not exactly pleasant.

My Score: 3/10 - The engine is inadequate for the car, if it feels underpowered then it probably is.

Handling: After seeing the disappointing performance of the Fusion, I can safely say this portion is much more positive. This Ford Fusion shares the same platform as the Mazda6, as a result the chassis is much better than average allowing the Fusion to do much better cornering. Ford however did make the car rather soft thus not allowing the Fusion to pull off this handling with as much dignity as the Mazda. The wheel for the Fusion is heavier than the Mazda making it produce more feel but it doesn't connect as well due to how soft the car is.

My Score: 7/10 - Good chassis, good steering feel...but tempered with a soft suspension.


Interior: The Fusion's interior is not exactly a beautiful one. Depending on which colour you select might determine how good or bad it looks. The black interior does not do the Fusion any justice making it seem very bland and boring. The beige interior is much more upbeat and clearly makes the interior seem merely generic. The build quality is surprisingly solid despite being built in Mexico, normally car companies put lower quality control for their plants there.

My Score: 6/10 - Pretty bland and uninteresting especially in black but built surprisingly well

Styling: As mentioned earlier the Ford Fusion is Ford's first attempt to place the 3-bar grille on every single vehicle in their lineup. I don't think the first Fusion did a good job in making the 3-bar grille look good. From the front it looks like a Gilette razor, from the rear its slightly more interesting with neat tail lights. Other than that its nothing special, the razor like grille might a turn off.

My Score: 5/10 - A generic car with a silly grille but a neat rear end.

Value for money: The Fusion was priced to compete against the likes of the Accord and Camry, but due to Ford's past with this segment the Fusion is a tad bit cheaper by a few thousand. The result is a car that handles reasonably well but is hindered by either being cheap or boring in another area. It does look a bit different due to the 3-bar grille but that doesn't do enough to justify buying one. It however sadly is the best compared to GM's Malibu(pre-08) and Chrysler's awful cars.

My Score: 6/10 - Ford didn't overcharge here, but in order to get the best results asking for a bit more for a better car overall wouldn't hurt.

Overall: 27/50 - A possibly good car hurt in several segments. Even worse, the Mazda6 its based off of is a better car in every way. Fear not, Ford actually has taken things seriously and has definitely addressed each one of my complaints with the 2010 Fusion(a review quite some distance away since there's a few older cars to get to). If you really wanted a domestic midsized from the year 2005-2007, then the Fusion is a good choice but not 2008 since GM's Malibu improved a lot.

2006 Hyundai Elantra Review

Today I will do 2 reviews, this time of a car that I've driven some time ago. The 2006 Hyundai Elantra.

Introduction: The 2006 Hyundai Elantra is a compact car designed to compete against the more common Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. Hyundai has always been made fun of for their earlier admittedly low quality vehicles, the 1st Elantra included. This did not deter Hyundai as they strive to be taken seriously as a large automaker. I'm kind of a loss about the description of the Elantras in general since the Koreans just made cars of all sizes specifically to compete, not innovate. Onto the review then.

The 2006 Elantra was one of the first vehicles I got to drive at my job. My expectations of the car were admittedly low, I've never really taken the Korean cars very seriously. The example I was shown...was in awful looking colour called "Sage Green", its still being used today. I certainly felt just by looking at this car that Honda and Toyota could forget about having Korean competetion catching up.

Performance: All of the North American Hyundai Elantras come with a 2.0L DOHC 4-cylinder engine producing 138 hp and 136 lb. ft of torque which is actually better than what Toyota's 1.8L engine offered. The engine is shared with Mitsubishi meaning this is a joint venture engine. This allowed the Elantra to accelerate from 0-100 in 10 seconds with an automatic transmission, the manual being about to 9 seconds. Having driven this car, the engine while resonably powerful is very unrefined and noisy. I don't mind noise from engines but this car drones and starts sounding more and more awful each time. Power isn't very smooth like you would expect from a modern 4-cylinder. The 2006 Elantra does have some power, but the sacrifices required to get this power do not seem worth it.

My Score: 5/10 - The engine is alright as an a to b engine, but its not enjoyable in any way. The drones particularly were really annoying.

Handling: I didn't expect too much again since this is a regular car attempting to compete against regular cars. The 2006 Elantra had a fairly light wheel but unfortunately did not provide much feel when making turns. Attempting to make a corner in an Elantra is not very memorable and due to the uninvolving nature of the wheel was pretty boring. Hyundai did not put a lot attention to how the car handled or feel and it shows. This Elantra will not excite any enthusiast.

My Score: 3/10 - This wasn't the worst car when it comes to handling but the lack of feel and the lack of fun it gives means it fails in my mind. You do not deserve a good grade if you fail to put in the effort.

Interior: The interior of the Elantra is nothing to brag about. All in all it is pretty generic, many of the interiors of the cars are depressing grey. The chimes that the Elantra has are quite annoying, I remember them so well and they're something I couldn't stand. The stereo was a pre-2008 Hyundai unit...meaning it is crap. The sound quality of the stereo is low, the buttons are very small and last but not least the most annoying feature if your listening the radio waiting for somebody with the car off and then decide to start the car...the stereo resets the volume to a low setting...what a stupid idea. The car was built in South Korea...from what I can see the Koreans only do a good job if they believe the product is good...the build quality is so-so meaning they believed the car was so-so.

My Score: 4/10 - Generic interior, so-so build quality and a terrible stereo. This I think is a very fair score.

Styling: The Korean car companies have never been very good at styling cars. There's always something somebody can spot that the Koreans copied. Currently this was the phase when the Koreans were copying European and the Elantra took a few front cues from the British company MG. Unfortunately they added some Korean bits and thus the car looks angry but ugly at the same time. Its not appealing in any angle be it sedan or hatchback. The picture I displayed is the one I remember, the Sage Green Hyundai Elantra...yuck.

My Score: 2/10 - A failed copy job, with an option for a awful colour

Value for Money: Here is something the Koreans do particularly well in. In the past it was the Japanese who offered extra equipment often propelling the cost of their cars but ending up cheaper than a full loaded car. The Koreans offer lots of equipment at a low price undercutting everybody. The 2006 Elantra comes with a lot of the expected standard options which makes them better equipped than the Civics and Corollas. Hyundai also had a weak reputation in 2006 still meaning they were often cheaper as a whole compared to their American competition with a declining reputation and were offering less. As a low cost compact car, the Elantra looked great in the brochure spec sheet.

My Score: 8/10 - Great value for a low price. Its a pity it took them 2 more years to get everything right.

Overall: 22/50 - A reasonable effort but Hyundai, while its clear this car was not a good vehicle the most importing thing was Hyundai knew this. My low marks for this car is partly due to how much better Hyundais could be.

Welcome to "The poor car reviewer". First review: The 1986 Toyota Cressida

Hello everybody and welcome to the first blog post of "The poor car reviewer". In my current job I have the rare opportunity to actually drive several mostly new cars, unlike people test driving I actually take these over sometimes long distances. The longest so far was going from Brampton in a Pontiac G5 back to Richmond Hill. My reviews I hope are more in depth and show some of the passion I have about driving cars in general. Plus I'm not paid to do this. I'm going to start the review with my own car as a template for all other cars to follow. I'm going to start with most of the older 2006 cars before I actually forget them since its been a year since I've driven some of these.


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.