The Bitsy Story

Here is our first Corolla, which we named "Bitsy". Bitsy was a fairy-tale-story.

When I lived in St Louis, I never checked the paper for cars. All you can find are Oldsmobiles, similar garbage, or you can find an early 90s Accord or Camry with 250,000 miles for $5,000 or more. Nice. But one day in early February 2006, I happened to check the Toyotas. It doesn't take long to check that section, there are never many of them for sale. I'm scanning through the usual 90s and newer cars, and then I see ONE car that stands out. The title read something along the lines of; "1981 Toyota Corolla, two owners, garaged rust free, 40k miles." I happened to be the first of over 100 calls that day, and I was obviously the first one willing to make the hour and a half drive out of town to check the car out.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, what the heck did a 1981 Corolla look like? I'd certainly never seen one, and I couldn't picture it at all. Google searching only came up with a tiny thumbnail or two, I really couldn't get a good idea but we knew the car would be a great investment and probably look pretty funky. I remember Atika and I driving out there in our *cringe* Ford Focus and the minute the car came into view. Jaws dropped...We both exclaimed, "WE WANT THAT" before we even came to a stop. The car was so shiny, so small and had so much character! The son of the second owner, Dave handed us the tiny original key and let us take it for a drive. Getting in the car was a trip, there was more interior room than I'd ever experienced, despite the small size of the exterior.

The interior was as cherry as the outside, the lady had the car detailed and serviced way more often than is necessary, every part of the car looked new, garaged for more than 20 years. We were in love, and gladly handed over a $500 deposit to secure the car. She was purchased spring of 2005 I believe, from her second owner. The car had done well under 50,000 original Illinois miles, and she was only $2000. That night, I started researching more in depth and found the life changing forum www.Toyota3TC.com, and I found out just how legendary this car was in the development of the brand and model.

We came back within two days to pick the car up, and tried to make notes about the mechanical history of the car. The owner didn't feel comfortable giving us the maintenance records, because they had her personal information on them. So I was determined to take good notes and be meticulous about the whole story on this car. But the service history was all tiny services and general pamperings. No cars have any real mechanical failures in the first 50k, let alone the bomb proof Corollas.

The only funny/painful part of the story was when we stopped on the way home at a lousy little "Mexican Restaurant" for dinner, only to find that the starter didn't have another start left in it. So we had to leave the car parked there, drop the key in a drop box at a mechanic across the street, and get picked up by my parents. Dave, the man who sold us the car, was happy to pay for the repair and was very gracious and comforting about the quality of our purchase....little did we know the journey that was just beginning. We would enjoy this car for three years and more than 50,000 miles.

We sold the Focus immediately after, and shopped for a second car a little while later. I bought a 95 Civic hatch with 19k miles on it, only to find that the car wasn't measuring up to the Corolla's value or performance. Eventually sold that car for what I had paid, and got a little moped for $400. We pampered bitsy for the first year, but regretfully we couldn't keep her garaged when the salt and snow were on the roads.

So she saw a little rust creep around the edges, but was still a head turner till January 0f 2009. Bitsy suffered a low speeed fender bender that mangled the grill and headlights, and she was just never the same to us (even though she still ran and drove well). Two other classic Corollas came and went during her career (their stories will come later). Before we were ready to let go of Bitsy, I had to have another Corolla ready. So I purchased a 1982 Corolla Hardtop for $500 off Craigslist. We sold Bitsy for $600 to a very excited and appreciate woman, who fell in love with her too.

To Bitsy, the standard by which all future cars shall be measured.