FEATURE: RYAN’S MX73 TOYOTA CRESSIDA

– Words: Ryan Lewis. Photos: MJ Digital.

This might not be the prettiest car in the world, but I’m a fan. Mostly because it belongs to me, and the old boy gets me to work and back without a word of complaint every single day. If you’ve ever looked at the features here on T-LD.com and wondered what we drive – here’s one of your answers.

It may be 27 years old, but I like to think that if you owned one of these back in ’84, you were doing alright. People knew you. Nowadays it doesn’t garner the same sort of respect that it might’ve in the mid eighties but it’s still a fun car for my commute. After selling the 180SX I had before this and funding an overseas trip with the money, I didn’t want to pour cash into another car. The SSR wheels you see here were ones that I already owned. I figured buying a car with the same stud pattern would make sense, and that helped narrow down my options. After considering R31 Skylines and some other old Toyotas, I found this Cressida for sale in Western Australia.

With no way of checking it out, I took a chance and just bought it. It was cheap enough to run the risk and when it turned up in Sydney all was well. I shortened the springs quick smart, put some new tyres on the wheels and that was that. The vintage Momo steering wheel came a bit later, and those are the only mods this Cressida has seen apart from the basic stereo system it now has. We took a few snaps of the Cressi recently for the T-LD.com garage section, and here’s what they look like.

Wheel sizes are 16×9+13 at the rear, and 16×8+0 at the front with a 5mm spacer added for -5mm effective. Steering wheel is a 370mm Momo, but model name is unknown. Boss kit is a generic eBay item with 20mm extender.