In the early 1980s, the subcompact market was as dull as dish water. Eventually it became home for some of the hottest automotive hardware produced. If you were shopping for a subcompact, you knew of the segments vast selection and its need for clearer definition. What was once just a market niche was now the broad base of all retail car sales. Yesterday’s econobox subcompact car class became a full-line product gamut. From little luxos, trendy transports, family fliers, and rocket racers to any number of the above combinations, these were the subcompacts of the late 1980s.
If your car buying dollars required that you extracted as much practicality as performance from your new investment, your shopping list grew in 1987, to include the Toyota’s newest family member, the Corolla FX16 GT-S. Add it to the list of already outstanding 80s pocket rockets you could have chosen from, including the Mitsubishi Mirage Turbo, Volkswagen GTI, Honda Civic Si, and Chrysler/Shelby Turbo Charger, and you began to see how times had changed. We were a long way away from strippo Pintos and Vegas with that lineup.
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