H-Town's 🤘 dopest grocery-getter. 1985 Toyota Mark II Wagon

I had the pleasure of shooting Jacob’s 1985 Toyota Mark II wagon while I was in Houston for the Super Bowl festivities. I met Jacob earlier that morning at the Rice and Coffee meet at Morning Star Coffee. Rice and Coffee are where a few classic Japanese car enthusiasts get together to talk cars and just hang out amongst friends. Shout out to Danh for letting me know about the meet. Jacob was cool enough to go out of his way to meet us later that day for the shoot. Thanks, Jacob.

He imported his Mark II wagon from Japan so it is right-hand drive and in very good condition. He made plenty of modifications including these dope SSR Casablanca 15×10 negative 5 wheels. The SSR’s were actually brought in as a 14″ but Jacob had the guys at 4th Up in Columbus, Ohio step lip them to 15″.

I’m kind of a sucker for wagons but this one was definitely worth the time to shoot. Something about a “family” style “grocery getter” being modded really captures the spirit of the car enthusiast.

Everything from the paint to the interior was in pretty good shape on this wagon. The OEM optional power fender mirrors give it that extra JDM look.

The MarkII grill and emblem give it that classy / gangster look if that makes sense. It’s these small things that really capture the attention of us car lovers.

MarkII logo on the rain deflectors which run along the windows. It’s details like these that give these types of cars their character. Jacob tells me this is a pretty rare factory option.

You can’t notice in this photo, because it was daytime, but these are one-off LED lights. Also, note the double wipers. When Jacob received the car from Japan it had a bolt-on turndown installed in Japan. To match his personal taste, he replaced the tip with a straight pipe exhaust with 2″ blast pipes.

Jacob is part of a car crew by the name of Best Friends Garage, there are a few members here on the mainland and more in Hawaii. He’s also repping for the guys at 4th Up who built his wheels and the Nostalgic Car Boss Mayday garage sticker. Just needs a WMD Sticker.

We popped the hood to see the internals…

This wagon is powered by a low-spec single-cam Toyota 1GE inline-6. “Grandma Spec” as Jacob put it.

Jacob tells me it’s one of the slowest cars he’s owned but fun to drive and makes a great cruiser. He also has plans for an engine swap in the future so we’re looking forward to that as well.

Since you can't get parts for the 1G in the states, he had to get creative. The distributor cap and rotor are 7m items, and he adapted a Chevy plug wire kit from Accel. A universal Accel ignition coil rounds out the complete ignition tune-up.

Not surprisingly, he had trouble finding parts to mod this wagon so he ended up converting to a full Nissan 240sx S13 Powered by Max front end.

It’s the interiors of these classic Japanese cars that really get me hyped. Not sure what it is… like a forgotten era of simplicity and function.

The interior is in amazing shape given it’s more than 30 years old. Jacob scored this Momo Super Indy 350mm steering wheel from his friend who took it off of his BRG Miata. By the way, it came from Japan with Tom’s wheel but the woodgrain Momo better fit Jacob’s style. Again, the interior is in good shape. No cracks on the dash or big tears on the seats. Hoping that the Texas sun is kind to that dash! Keep it, covered man!

This is a “Safety in Traffic” charm Jacob brought back from the Meiji shrine the last time he was in Tokyo Japan. A nice little finishing touch to this awesome Mark II classic wagon.

Hope you enjoyed the photos and make sure to check out the video below – watch until the end so you can hear Jacobs's horn, which was a Christmas gift from his wife, it will make your day.  Thanks again to Jacob for letting us shoot his car. Check out the video walkthrough below. - Alex