My 84 SR5

[mountaindude]

My Tercel 1984. This is the last of my 3 Tercels, 83, 85, 84. I bought the car for $400 12 years ago from a seasonal ski bum moving back to Brazil.

Manual transmission. She is my Winter daily driver over a very dangerous Sierra mountain pass that tops out at 7740ft.

I am waiting on the replacement computer for my Summer driver, 91Camry, so I am driving the Tercel until fixed.
I will tell you that the Tercel is an awesome snow ride. I refer to my Winter drive as a "suicide mission" as many people die on this pass every year due to icy conditions, heavy snow drifts, and white outs and as low as -21 degrees. I climb from 4700 ft over 7740 ft and decend to 6300 ft and back, daiIy. The Tercel is super capable and sure. The manual transmission helps control speed without using the brakes. The car has saved my life.
I plan on spending the Summer doing upkeep maintenance.
I do struggle with chasing rust as the roads are heavily salted, so much that I will not drive my Gen 1 4runner up here.

[Petros]

looks like up around Reno/Sparks area. nice area to have to drive to everyday.

[splatterdog]

Hard to beat a T4 in the winter. Especially when a $400 beater can dominate snowy roads without any.sort of stability systems. You are probably on top of this, but do run snows? Took me a while before I did as these do extremely well even on all seasons. Definitely a game changer. Never had to deal with snow higher than the car though!

[mountaindude]

When I first moved off the mountain and began doing this 30 mile trek to work, I had an 83 Tercel. I ran studded tires all the way around on all 4 wheels. What I learned is that all 4 studded was overkill and unnecessary.
I run studs on just the front tires these days. I often am able to do the climb just in front wheel drive and the decent in 4 wheel drive. The car is just amazing and I trust it completely.