You say potato, I say Paseo... convertible!

Today’s car comes to us from the parking lot of the liquor store I stopped at this evening to pick up some frosty beverages to consume while watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix and sculpting this evening.  What you’re looking at is actually a pretty rare little car.  It’s a 1996 or 97 model Toyotal Paseo convertible.  I think technically, all the US convertibles would be 97 models, even though most were actually built in 96.  The Paseos most people see are the coupes, and in fact, I had to stop and ask the guy who pulled up in this convertible about his car because I’d never seen a convertible version in person before.  He told me I was the first person he’s ever run into who actually knew what kind of car he had and graciously allowed me to take pictures of it for my blog.  Nice guy.

Back in 1996, the year yours truly graduated from high school, a 1997 model year (remember, they hit the sales floors early) Paseo convertible could be purchased for between $17,500-$20,000, depending on what trim and options you had on it.  For that money, you got a cute little convertible that was based on a Toyota Tercel (mentioned briefly in a previous post about birds and cars) with a yawn-inspiring 1.5L 4 cylinder engine that made 93 HP (interestingly, this is a 7 HP drop from previous model year Paseos because for the 2nd generation of Paseos, Toyota decided to keep things simple and make all their Paseos to match the demands of the California emissions standards -thanks again, EPA). You also got a manual drop-top.  Safety features like anti lock brakes required purchase of a safety package, and moving up to larger rims than the stock 14” standard was extra, too.  It’s probably not too surprising that people looking to get into a summer fling with a cheap, fun convertible would opt instead to spend the same base price dollar amount on a Chevy Cavalier, or Pontiac Sunfire convertible, or even a little Honda Civic Del Sol Targa top, all of which came with more power, and better safety features standard.

The Paseo only lasted for a span of 5 years in the US market, between 1992-1997.  It continued to sell elsewhere throughout the world, including in nearby Canada until 1999.   The convertibles were only made in 1996-1997 for the US.  Toyota’s refusal to keep the Paseo competitive in the marketplace is why you so seldom see Paseos, much less the convertible versions of them.  From what I was able to dig up online, the speculation is that for the 1997 model year, there were only 1,000 made for the US market.

For being the odd duck back in its production days, the very thing that made these cars obscure and undesirable is what ended up making them rare, and thus, somewhat desirable today.  If you decide you want a Paseo convertible, I say good luck finding one for sale.  Don’t be too afraid to get into one that needs some work, though try to steer clear of any examples with rust issues.  Because the Paseo has a lot common with the Tercel, it’s not too hard to locate parts.  If the convertible top is in rough shape, it’s not too bad to handle either.  A little shopping around online shows that you can get a new, install it yourself convertible top for these cars at a cost of $379.95 for one with a plastic window and $439.95 for one with a glass window.   Don’t splash out lots of money on one, but expect that you’ll pay more for one of these than for one of its mechanically superior competitors from the same era.  You’ll pay that premium because what you’ll get in exchange is the confidence that you’ve probably got the only one of its kind for miles around.