Toyota Classic

When retro cars became a thing in the 1990s, Toyota had an ace up its sleeve: reviving the 1938-1943 AA as a limited production retro sedan.

I’ll admit, in the past I’ve been quite cold to the idea of puttering around in an old-looking car that’s compromised in all the wrong ways (dynamics, features, fuel economy, looks, performance…) but I’ve come around—hard—to the Toyota Classic.

Why? Well, underneath it’s a rear-drive Hilux truck. So, it’s an indestructible retro car.

When new, Classic was offered at a premium (apparently near $75,000 Usd.), so it’s an expensive, prestigious retro car, only built because Toyota wanted to, then pulled out all the stops to make it happen.

This isn’t some nose job: Toyota really did engineer pod headlights and taillights, matched to big-ass chrome bumpers and a whopping huge front grille.

Before I get into the new car, let’s stop over at the old one. Based on the A1, Toyoda’s first prototype car, the AA production car was nearly identical.

Here’s the thing: despite more than 1,400 AAs produced in period, by the mid-1980s, Toyota went out in search of an AA to buy and restore, to mark the car’s anniversary.

Awkward: Toyota discovered that none of the originals believed to have survived.

The hard way, it is: in 1987, Toyota built a reproduction AA from scratch, as close as it could muster using period photos, and that car sits in the company’s museum. It’s one thing to recreate lost meals served on the Titanic — and another feat entirely to cook a car you can actually drive.

(Some years later, one modified AA was discovered in a Russian barn, with a GAZ chassis, and nobody knows how it got there. Get to the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands to see it in its unrestored condition.)

This situation hasn’t really changed: if you want an original AA, you’ll have to make one for yourself.

Alternatively, find a 1996 Classic: it’s faster, more reliable, more practical, and surely easier than reverse-engineering a car from photographs.