1971 Toyotas - Before the beige.

Back in 1971, when Toyota was trying to get a foothold in the American market, they kind of tried to emulate the look of familiar American car styling - all the better to to tempt a customer wary of Japanese cars. Now, looking at them here in The Future, they look like chibi versions of classic Detroit iron. I want one of these more than almost any current Toyota (almost). Toyotas became so ubiquitous in later decades that car people started describing the entire brand as "beige", meaning "dull and generic". When the whole "unintended acceleration" thing was going on , Jalopnik subtitled the story "beige bites back". This ad is from the time when Toyota could only dream of being the "boring old everycar".

The Celica became a popular sport compact among the backwards-hat set, especially the all-wheel-drive version. All wheel drive is better when you have more wheels in you "all". It could probably benefit from another axle. Let me get that for you. P.A.G! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade, assemble!!!! BAM!

Pattern brush! SFOOSH! Lasso tool! PRING! Duplicate layer! BWANNG! Scale object! FRISH! Edit mask! BLONK! File/save as! DING! Good work, team!

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