To the Moon and Back in a Vintage ’78 Corolla

I swore I’d take my ’78 Toyota Corolla hatchback to the millennium, and I made it. The question is: Should I keep going? Only 7,000 miles till it hits 300,000. And what about the 25th anniversary in 2003? Then there’s the mileage that would equal a round trip to the moon: 480,000.

I’m the third owner. The second was a saleswoman, and I’m told they do a lot of driving. The engine is the second. The starter is about the sixth or eighth. I’ve crossed the country in the car at least four times.

Why did I hang on? Broke? No. I just admire a survivor. Polk Co., which keeps track of such things, says my Corolla is one of 4,077 still registered in the U.S., out of the 212,757 that Toyota sold in 1978.

But with the Corolla on another of its multiple-repair tantrums, I’ve begun looking at new cars for the first time in my life.

When I consider joining the ordinary consumer horde and buying, if not new, a car of more recent vintage, I start to miss those qualities that make the Corolla unique:

The rust spots that give it a kind of leopard look. The $850 worth of smog-certification work it had last summer. The driver’s window that stuck a week later, just to rub it in. The faulty starter that sends me to the back seat for jumper cables, then works again just as help pulls up. The search for downhill slopes to park on when the starter’s at its worst. The hatchback door bravely hanging on with one good hinge. The subtle scoring of the windshield by the right wiper blade.

Some things are just sentimental in value: The sinkhole in the driver’s seat, neatly covered by a cushion. The scale-model San Andreas Fault down the center of the vinyl dash. The $20 speakers I picked up somewhere (that’s for the pair). The dead tachometer and clock. The armrest that sags at a drunken angle. The cooler blowing warm and the heater blowing red-hot.

But there are advantages to owning a car in this condition: There’s the unappetizing appearance to thieves (letting me keep camera gear under carefully strewn beach towels). The luxury of waving off drivers who rear-end me at 5 mph. (Hey, thanks for straightening my bumper!) The disincentive to be valet-parked, and the tip money saved. More sound effects from the engine and body than a train can make.

I like to think the Corolla’s appearance is superseded by its tenacity. The guys at the carwash never laugh, although maybe it’s self-restraint.

The car’s finest moment wasn’t even on the road but in the halls of jurisprudence, when a woman sued me frivolously over a minor accident. It was a three-day jury trial:

PLAINTIFF’S ATTORNEY (indicating photo of my front bumper): Can you point to the impact area?

ME (trying to figure out which impact it could be): . . .

I won, and they had to pay my defense costs. I think the opposing attorney damaged his credibility when he accused me of having my bumper repaired before the photo was taken. Also, when the plaintiff’s chiropractor described whiplash forces throwing her head straight back, the judge looked up. I had hit her on the side.

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I regret that I never gave the car a name that stuck. A friend calls it the Mikemobile. But its personality is too distinct from mine. For example, I’m impatient and have a low threshold for pain. The name should capture the car’s curiously contrasting qualities: Intrepid yet slapstick. Stoic yet deranged. Collecting a pension yet still pounding fence posts. The best I can come up with is Corollasaurus.

Then I start thinking of the kind of bumper sticker it deserves. Something that captures the spirit of both the road and car: “Live Free, Die Unnoticed.” “Rebel Without a Horn.” “Drive, He Sobbed.” “Ignition is Job 1.” “The Relentless Pursuit of a Call Box.” “Accident No Longer Waiting to Happen.” “What Minimum-Speed Sign?” “My Other Car’s in a Parallel Universe.” “Hit Me, I’m Writing a Column!”

A friend, inspired by “Cadillac Ranch,” the outdoor sculpture with old Caddys half-buried nose-down in the dirt, suggested I inaugurate a Corolla Ranch.

I guess keeping the thing is just a fantasy. I’d be swimming against the tide of obsolescence, or driving the wrong way on the offramp. But a nagging voice says, “Only $200 for a new starter.”

I try to picture being a new-car owner and wonder if my identity will suddenly crumble. And where to take the poor Corolla? How to break the news? I know I’m delaying the inevitable. And I know who won’t miss it: the guys at the carwash. It’s hard on their rags.

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Mike Grundmann is a copy editor for The Times’ Orange County edition. He can be reached at mike.grundmann@latimes.com.