Vintage Racing: SCCA GT4 TE27 Toyota Corolla

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Isuzu, here are some more vintage racing snaps. A couple of weeks ago at JCCS, we met a dude from T. Creations Paint Designs of Pasadena. He had collected some photos of this car, the old Downey Toyota TE27 that was often seen around SoCal’s road courses. 

USDM fans in Japan would really dig this picture, in which the Corolla rounds the bend in an otherwise quintessentially American racing scene.

Here’s the car squaring off against a bugeye Sprite. These grainy, sepia-drenched images take us back to a simpler time in grassroots motorsports. Check out the old school sponsor logos — Winston cigarettes, Wrangler jeans, Monroe shocks. The vintage Denso logo in the rear window of the Corolla is groovy too.


The car was pretty heavily flared, but no in the traditional bolt-on Japanese style. The best part about this Corolla? It’s number 86, long before the hachiroku existed.

permalink.
This post is filed under: motorsports, toyota and
tagged: , , , , , , .

16 Responses to Vintage Racing: SCCA GT4 TE27 Toyota Corolla

  1. Nismopunch says:

    Anyone know what happened to this car? If it was at JCCS and I missed spotting it…I will be doing a face plant into my keyboard now lol. Pretty sure it was not there?

    • Ben says:

      Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it. It wasn’t at JCCS (unless someone unknowingly bought and repainted it during the last 30 years 🙂 )

    • Manny torres says:

      The car was built and driven by manny torres in early 1980 one of four cars this was #2.( scca cal club)

  2. Tyler says:

    Righteous, dude. I dig it! The feel of the photos is fantastic, but sometimes I wish they were higher res. I suppose 35mm is what it is though.

    • E-AT_me says:

      :facepalm: 35mm is entirely better for resolution than i’d say at least 70percent of the digital cameras out there. it’s all in the scanner. mind you these photos are also 30 years ago too. kids and there digital cameras just don’t know what they are missing…

      • Lincoln Stax says:

        I just bought a few film cameras. I got a Brownie Starflex (127 film) for nostalgia’s sake, since it was the first camera I ever owned. It was my mom’s, and she gave it to me in the ’70s. I also got a Yashica 44A (also 127) since it’s a beautiful camera. And finally, I bought a Canon AE-1 to replace the first camera I ever bought for myself back in 1982. Getting film for the AE-1 is easy enough, but the 127 film needs to be ordered online since there are very few people making it.

  3. ken nakajima says:

    its cars like this that got me into classic toyotas and classic cars in general

    • Manny torres says:

      I am in process of building 1974 Toyota Corolla te21 ,(3t,mikuni side drafts, t50trans. ,street/track day )

  4. Toyotageek says:

    Is Jun Imai reading this? Ahem…. Future HW in my book….. ;o)

  5. Tony says:

    Mango goodness. Yum yum

  6. Richard says:

    Downey Toyota? So pretty much what is Penske Toyota in Downey? thats just down the street from me. ha.

    vintage racecars are awesome! any video of this floating around somewhere?

  7. Manny torres says:

    I built and drove these corollas 1977-1990

  8. Manny torres says:

    Builder and driver……1977-1990

  9. Manny torres says:

    Builder and driver, it’s Toyota Corolla west coast scca cal club 1st ever the year 1977,,,l!,,

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *