The First Clock Around (1992) – From the Old Box

At the beginning of 1992 we started a new section: Klokje Rond. The setup was roughly the same as today, we were looking for a car with a remarkably high mileage and an inspector ran an extensive (purchase) inspection. The personal element was still missing. The owner did not elaborate on why he or she drove a car with such a respectable mileage and what could be said about the maintenance in the years before. Just a summary of the major maintenance was sufficient. It also becomes clear with retroactive effect how much the quality of cars has improved over the past 30 years. “A car with more than a ton on the counter is difficult to sell,” we wrote to explain. Whether it really was all doom and gloom, this new column had to show.

We started with a 1984 Toyota Corolla 1.8 diesel. A ‘just’ eight year old car with almost 210,000 km on the odometer. Today we wouldn’t turn our backs on it, especially not with a diesel car. In terms of age and road experience, a car with such figures in 2022 would be a fine occasion that was sold in no time. Times change. This is also apparent from a number of maintenance points that (first) owner Dé Reijne had tackled. For example, at 70,000 km he had the doors tectylated, imagine if you had to do that after such a relatively short time these days. At 110,000 km he had done the same to the wheel arches. Rust treatment was still very common in cars of that time and many cars were scrapped because of rust rot rather than mechanical failure. It’s usually the other way around these days.

Anyway, nothing against the Corolla. In general, the car made a very good impression on the judge. As you can see above, there was not much to notice about the other maintenance over the years and the car made a sufficiently fresh impression to ‘keep going for years’. The judge praised the quality of Toyota’s. That was already a significant plus in the 80s and many made it to the 90s with no problems. “Get any Toyota off the street. Ten to one that it also passes the inspection excellent,” said the judge. At least that was the case for Mr. Reijne’s Corolla. Only two new headlight units had to be fitted there due to reduced light output and a brake lining at the rear had to be addressed. The advice was therefore to take those points to heart and just continue driving with the faithful four-wheeler.