A 1979 Toyota Cressida is parked in at Signal Hill in St. John's. A local dealer brought the vehicle out from display to mark the start of a cross-country trek Toyota has organized to celebrate 60 years since the creation of Canadian Motor Industries Ltd.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
Toyota will tell you it is the only automaker in Canada that still makes a full lineup of vehicles: everything from full-size trucks to sports cars. It doesn’t sell a small and affordable two-seater convertible in Canada, but other than that, who am I to quibble?
In any case, a two-seater convertible would not be well suited to roads in cool and bumpy Newfoundland, where I’m about to take part in two segments of a six-stage drive across the country to celebrate Toyota’s six-decade history in Canada. Toyota chose St. John’s as the starting point for a media event intended to showcase its vehicle lineup and mark 60 years since the creation of Canadian Motor Industries Ltd., in September, 1964. CMI went on to become Toyota Canada Inc. in 1980, and the rest is a history the company is keen to tell to anyone who’ll pay attention. Me? I just wanted to drive the 1979 Toyota Cressida that the local dealer brought out from display duty to mark the occasion.
Mark Richardson sits behind the wheel of the 1979 Toyota Cressida in St. John’s.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The Cressida's interior, with velour upholstery and a pencil-thin steering wheel, is a blast from the automotive past.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The Cressida was immaculate with its velour upholstery and pencil-thin steering wheel. A Corner Brook customer apparently traded it in after years of faithful service and the dealership kept it as a reminder of how things were: four-speed automatic transmission, a 2.6-litre straight-six-cylinder engine rated for a leisurely 110 horsepower, rear drum brakes and ashtrays in the door handles. I drove it to Signal Hill and while progress was smooth, I was bothered by the lack of a passenger-side mirror. There was no way I’d brave the tight, single lanes of the city’s Battery district in a car without mirrors all around. How our basic needs have changed.
This is what Toyota wanted to show from this drive – that, unlike the old Cressida, its new cars are as modern as can be, and there’s one suited for every Canadian road. The company didn’t bother bringing its all-electric bZ4X crossover to Newfoundland, however. It’s only available in Quebec and British Columbia, to satisfy provincial mandates for selling electric cars and avoid costly penalties if not enough are sold. Toyota didn’t even bring any of its plug-in hybrids, like the Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime. If an owner of these cars should decide to visit, there are few public charging stations available. Even Tesla does not sell its electric vehicles in Newfoundland.
The 2024 Land Cruiser (above), pictured at kilometre 0 outside St. John’s City Hall, is comfortable and capable.
The 2024 Toyota Crown Signia, parked at Neil’s Harbour, N.S., is a luxurious and better value at just under $62,000 before taxes.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
I did, though, get to drive the new Land Cruiser (very comfortable and capable, as it should be with a $77,290 starting price and $13,080 of options), the new Crown Signia (remarkably luxurious and much better value at just under $62,000 before taxes) and the sporty GR86 (the top-end Trueno edition, costing $41,142 before taxes).
The GR86 was probably the wrong car for The Rock’s monotonous section of the Trans-Canada Highway. When I drove at dusk to my hotel at Deer Lake – the prime time and prime location for meeting moose and caribou on the road – a local driver in a blacked-out Volkswagen Golf spotted me and overtook at stunning speed, then slowed in front to well below the speed limit. When I tried to overtake, he sped up to not allow me past. (Don’t bother with calling for gender-neutrality – I’m pretty sure it was a he.)
This happened several times. The sight of another sporty car in central Newfoundland was presumably just too tempting for this lug nut. I was about to pull over and park for a while when he turned off toward Jackson’s Arm. Here’s hoping he grows up before becoming a statistic.
The 86 was an ideal car, however, when two days later, I started driving the Cabot Trail. I began in a Corolla Hybrid and cruised in long lines of unpassable traffic until swapping for the sporty two-plus-two coupe at the top of the island. On the smooth, well-engineered curves through Cape Breton National Park, suddenly empty of vacationers after a morning rainstorm, the rear-wheel-drive 86 was in its element. The six-speed manual transmission was crisp and the 228-horsepower four-cylinder engine was responsive. Not particularly powerful, but quick to react and satisfying to drive.
The sporty 2024 Toyota GR 86, with a six-speed manual transmission and 228-horsepower four-cylinder engine, is in its element on Nova Scotia's Cabot Trail.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
This was the Trueno edition of the GR86, with an upgraded suspension and brakes. It’s named after the 1984 Corolla Sport GT-S that was called the Sprinter Trueno in Japan, which was a peppy hot hatchback, especially popular for rallying and drifting back in the eighties. Drivers had fun in their cars back then, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t use today’s remarkable technology to find our own, safer fun today.
I handed over the keys in Halifax to a new group of drivers and the Toyota event continued west. I’ll rejoin the group in Calgary to take a new batch of vehicles on to Victoria, powered with gas and electricity and even hydrogen. I hope the drive across British Columbia’s mountains will be as satisfying as this first segment.
The 1979 Toyota Cressida outside Plaza Toyota in St. John’s, with the four Toyota vehicles used for the drive behind: L-R, Corolla, Land Cruiser, Crown Signia, and GR 86.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail
The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.