LIFE Magazine August 1980 - Auto Manufacturing

You can click on any of these for a larger view that should be readable.

Although that recession was of the more normal cyclical variety, it was clear there were problems ahead in the U.S. auto industry that weren’t being addressed. One of those threats was, of course, Toyota and their high MPG vehicles:

The Corolla was getting 41 MPG highway, which is just about what my company car Prius was getting. It’s a bit of an aside, but I drove a Prius for two years in my previous job and I was NOT impressed — that will be addressed in a future blog post.