See Full Image Gallery >>

If you want a cheap, rock-and-stick-simple, gas-sipping car that can handle mud and snow without flinching, you'd have a tough time surpassing the 1983-1988 Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon. Known as the Sprinter Carib in Japan, these cartoonish-looking little wagons proved quite popular in North America, despite their tippy handling and patience-building double-digit horsepower, and I still find plenty of them in junkyards to this day. Here's a first-model-year example with the luxurious (by early-1980s Tercel standards) SR5 top trim level, found in a Denver yard last winter.