The Toyota Caldina is an automobile manufactured by Toyota for the Japanese market from 1992 to 2007. It replaced the Corona and Carina wagons, and was sold at Toyota Store and Toyopet Store locations in Japan. While the Caldina has never been officially exported by Toyota, its All-Trac 4WD capability and large capacity have made it a popular grey import in Australia, New Zealand, Russia and many South American countries. When it was discontinued in 2007, the T270 series Avensis wagon/estate assumed its market position. According to Toyota, the name "Caldina" is inspired by the Italian adjective "cardinal", meaning "essential" or "fundamental".
The first generation Caldina is a 5-door wagon and commercial van version of the Corona/Carina sedan in Japan. The wagon has independent strut rear suspension while the commercial wagon has semi-independent leaf springs.
The second generation Caldina is the Japanese version of the European Avensis wagon, launched in Japan in 1997. The four-wheel drive models are coded ST215, and were also offered as Active Sports GT models with the 3S-GE engine. The top-of-the-line GT-T came with the turbochargedfourth generation3S-GTE engine, and included a four-wheel drive system similar to the Celica GT-Four. The GT-T also came with optional electronic stability control. The Aerial version features a large sunroof and contoured roof racks as standard. Weighing, the manual Caldina GT-T has a time of 6.4 seconds, with the automatic version only 0.1 seconds slower. A refresh was given in 2000 with new plastic bumpers and plastic headlights. The mostly-plastic interior was also updated. In 2001, an extra lug was added to the turbo manifold to prevent the manifold from warping which had been a common issue on GT-T models. Reliability of the GT-T engines proved to be a concern throughout the lifespan of the 3S powered GT-Ts, with spun main bearings and shattered oil pump gears being common issues amongst owners. Engines for lesser models are the 1.8 L 7A-FEpetrol, the 2.0 L 3S-FE petrol and the 2.2 L 3C-TE diesel. Reliability and maintenance issues combined with relative obscurity, hampered perceived resale values of the GT-T in countries outside Japan, making the GT-T a very cheap people carrier in grey markets like Australia.
The third generation Caldina launched in September 2002 is a pure sports wagon and does not share body panels with Allion, Premio and Avensis. Engines for the Caldina are 1.8 L 1ZZ-FE, 2.0 L 1AZ-FSE and 2.0 L turbocharged 3S-GTE. Trim levels are 1.8 X, 1.8 Z, 2.0 Z, 2.0 ZT and GT-Four. All models have an automatic transmission and the GT-Four model only comes in a tiptronic transmission. As a tribute to Toyota's motorsports development guru and the creator of the first GT-Four, Hiromu Naruse, a special edition Caldina GT-Four was produced, the Caldina GT-Four "N" edition. This model was equipped with several performance enhancements specified by Naruse:
Production of the third generation Caldina ended in mid-2007 without a direct successor, but is indirectly replaced with the T270 series Avensis wagon/estate imported from UK.
