In November 1965, six months after the Renault R16 hatchback appeared in Europe, Toyota unveiled its Corona hatchback in Japan.
Not that it was called a “hatchback” in those days.
In Japan they called it the Toyopet “five door.”
Toyopet was a brand of Toyota.
A year later the car was in Australia and on the cover of Modern Motor.
That was two years ahead of the Renault 16’s local debut.
It was one of 12 imported by Australian Motor Industries (AMI), not Toyota Australia.
It cost almost $2600, the price of a Holden Premier sedan.
AMI referred to it as a “fastback”.
In the road test report Modern Motor seemed more focused on proving it was not a “fastback”.
What they missed seeing was a car that predicted the future.
By the time the Renault 16 arrived in Australia in mid-1968, the Toyota hatchback had been forgotten, and Toyota was fully engaged in building Corollas in Melbourne.
Toyota came back to the Corona hatchback in the early 1980s, calling it a lift back, as they did with 1982 Camry.
There are a couple of 1965 Corona hatchbacks still operating in Australia.
One is from that original batch of 12.
It is fascinating to speculate what might have happened if Toyota had pushed ahead with the hatchback idea on all their four-door small cars in the late 1960s.
They may have become even more globally dominant that they are now.
The “hatchback” descriptor was first used by Chevrolet to describe a model in its 1971 Chevrolet Vega line up.
David Burrell is the editor of retroautos
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