If you’re going to go to the trouble and expense of importing an overseas-market car to the United States, would you choose a car that was sold here in nearly identical form? That’s what someone did with this GDM Paseo, which I found in a Denver-area boneyard recently.
The Paseo was the sporty two-door version of the Tercel, which means it’s also a close first cousin to the front-wheel-drive 1990s Starlet.
The rest of the world got the Cynos starting in 1992, and they knew it as the Paseo. This is a Paseo S, which was the upscale trim level for the German-market coupe.
The second-generation Paseo appeared as a 1996 model, and a convertible version was added to the lineup. In the United States, this Paseo was available just through 1997, though it (and the Cynos) remained on sale elsewhere through 1999. After that, it was replaced by… nothing.
The only second-gen Paseo engine available outside of Japan was the 5E-FE 1.5-liter DOHC. The US-market version was rated at 93 horsepower and 100 pound-feet. The German-market 5E-FE made 90 PS and 130 Nm, which comes to about 89 hp and 96 pound-feet.
That means that whoever shipped this car over from Germany had a slightly slower version of the ’97 Paseo than what Americans had (or slight differences in the way Europeans and Americans test engine output mean that the power difference is just nominal).
This car has the base five-speed manual transmission.
All Paseos were built at the Takaoka plant in Toyota City.
It appears that it was sold new by ASL Lichtblau, which is now a Hyundai/Genesis/BYD dealership.
As someone who drives a car with a km/h speedometer in the United States every day, I can say that you get used to doing kilometers-to-miles conversions on the fly while driving. The odometer shows that this car made it to 281,220 km, which comes to about 174,742 miles. Not bad for a 1990s car in general, but not noteworthy for a 1990s Toyota (I need to see at least 350,000 miles on a junkyard Toyota odometer to be impressed).
I now own this cool-looking Toyota Team Europe badge.
There’s an English-language timing belt-replacement sticker dated 2019 under the hood, showing that the belt was replaced at 263,171 “miles” six years ago. Or maybe this car has a US-market Paseo hood swap; shouldn’t the Engine Service Information sticker be in German?
In any case, its final owner got temporary registration tags twice, apparently never graduating to real Colorado plates.
Dandy Dan doesn’t care if your car has valid plates or not!
I considered buying this Sony cassette deck with FM/MW/LW radio, because US-market radios don’t get longwave frequencies and it would be fun to have that capability in a junkyard boombox. Then I remembered that I already have a hoard stash of dozens of junkyard car radios.
Maybe some Colorado Paseo owner will get these European Paseo S floor mats before The Crusher eats this car.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
1997 Toyota Paseo in Colorado wrecking yard.
[Images: The Author]
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