Untold stories: Farewell to the Tercel

I bought my first car, a two-door 1990 Toyota Tercel, in 1992. It lasted four years until an unfortunate incident involving an oil change that apparently was only done partway - they never got around to putting oil back in the engine, as I found out a few days later. (It was on Holy Thursday in 1996. I remember growling "Tomorrow had better be a Good Friday, because it's been a lousy Thursday.")

I bought my second car shortly afterwards. It was new off the lot, a Nightshade Blue four-door Tercel DX. It was roomy and comfortable, even though it was one of the smallest cars available. It served me well for over twenty years. It started to show its age after about ten years, and began to have issues after about fifteen. By the 20 year mark, after well over 375,000 miles, it was clearly in need of replacement. I only drove it a few times a year after that to make sure the battery still worked, but eventually it took up permanent residence in our driveway. I knew I had to get rid of it, but couldn't bring myself to do it - until I was advised in June 2023, four months after my mother had died, that I had to.

Stripped of its license plate and ready to be hauled off. I had to send the plate to the state to prove that I no longer needed to carry insurance. 

I made arrangements with one of those groups that would haul away your car and donate the resale or scrap value to a charity - in this case, WVIA, the local NPR affiliate. I had to strip the interior of the car, which was a real deep dive into my personal history. I found some stuff in there that dated to around the time I bought my previous car.

Homemade window stickers featuring an alien, Garage Mahal (a friend's band), and the classic Alfred E. Neumann portrait from MAD Magazine. I don't remember what the missing sticker was. (I think it was Binky from Matt Groening's Life in Hell.)

I had wanted to be there to witness them taking it away, but the truck arrived much later than promised. By then my work-from-home job had started for the day, and I could only listen to the distant sounds of the car being manhandled onto a flatbed. I was most concerned it would simply snap in half as they tried to haul it off, but it didn't, as far as I could tell.

The Tercel had clearly seen better days. I was afraid it would crack in half when they came to haul it away. Note the homemade window stickers featuring the cover of My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" and the Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field.

It was a good car. It served me well, and was exactly what I needed. It was fast and nimble. It routinely got 40 mpg on the highway, even better on long trips. I still have a hard time parking the Toyota Camry I drive now.

This was a 1996 Tercel DX, a Deluxe model. I believe at the time that meant it had four doors, an automatic transmission, and power steering and brakes.

I realized last night I had not posted about my car since 2015. I decided I didn't want it to just fade away without some note of its passing. So, here it is.

Note the good old-fashioned manual climate controls.

376,483 official miles - plus a few more, since the speedometer and odometer stopped working sometime in 2016 or so. The velcro was for a small tap light I used to illuminate the speedometer when it was working - the dashboard light burned out around 2012. Apparently the Tercel went to its grave with nearly a full tank of gasoline. Fun fact: gasoline loses its functionality as a vehicle fuel after sitting around for a few years.