(car engine revving)
- It's the Japanese pony car that helped jump start
America's love affair with imports.
It was kicking WRC butt and taking names
before the WRX and EVO even showed up to the party.
(car engine revving)
This is everything you need to know
about the Toyota Celica.
(upbeat electronic music)
The year was 1970 and American muscle cars
were selling like frickin' hotcakes.
Japanese cars, on the other hand,
weren't so much.
Toyota realized that to sell more cars
to Americans, they was gonna have to start building
them more suited to American tastes.
Bigger engines, bigger seats.
At the Tokyo Motor Show, that October,
they launched a new two-door coupe designed
for the worldwide market meaning,
it could fit drivers as tall as me.
It was named the Celica
which came from a Latin word
that meant celestial or heavenly.
It was based on the Toyota Carina
and it was a little bigger than the ultra-compact Corolla.
Of course, it was practical and affordable
but the Celica had something more.
It was sporty
and it launched in the US in the middle of 1971
with a price significantly lower than the Mustang.
Under the long hood was a 1.9 liter, inline-4,
that made barely ninety heavenly ponies.
(car engine revving)
To top it off, the best selling Mustang
had gotten a case of the bloat
and both it's weight and waistline were increasing.
Just like that crazy TV doctors
time travelling telephone booth,
the Celica was small on the outside
but big on the inside.
Did I just make a Doctor Who joke in Up to Speed?
It was also the first Japanese car
to be partially built on an automated assembly line
which gave it better build quality
than its American competitors.
It had standard front-disc brakes.
A sweet four speed manual transmission
an independent MacPherson strut suspension, up front.
The little Japanese bad boy car had a lot of things
going for it and people started buying em'.
One of those early cars went to Swede, Ove Andersson.
Who, kicked off the Celica's long racing career
in the WRC, with a ninth place finish
in their first rally.
(car engine revving)
He formed Toyota Team Europe
and kept racing while he waited for boost
and even more drive wheels.
Soon, higher performance GT trims were introduced
and both engine size and sales, crept higher.
In '76, they introduced a sportier,
more practical liftback model with folding rear seats
and a 2.2 liter engine.
[Announcer] - You asked for it,
the Toyota Celica GT Liftback.
- The new trim had vertical taillights
and louvers on the seed pilar
and it looked suspiciously like a little Mustang.
Suspicious or not, it was a huge hit
and Motor Trend named the Celica
their import car of the year.
Toyota had already sold over a million
of the Japanese pony cars,
worldwide before 1977 was done.
The second-gen Celica debuted in 1978
with a new look pended, Toyota's SoCal Design Studio
by former child actor, David Stollery.
The new car was a little bigger and more comfortable
with a low beltline and expansive windows.
It had the same 2.2 liter engine
but the already good Celica was so improved
that it won Motor Trend Import Car of the Year, again.
Only two years after it's first win.
In the rest of the world,
the Celica was offered in what was called,
a Full Choice System with two body styles,
a bunch of engine sizes,
a bunch of transmissions,
a bunch of optional features,
and at one point,
there were forty nine unique Celica variants
for sale in Japan.
This car is confusing as (bleep).
So, I'm sorry if (bleep) is wrong.
It was at this point that the Celica started
to spawn some celestial children.
First, in 1979, a new trim
called the Celica Supra was born.
You ever heard of it you little pigs,
you little piggies?
I bet when I said that word,
some of you were making Ramen and you were like,
huh?
Supra?
I bet some of you were in the bathtub
and you heard Supra and you're like, what!
And you knocked your laptop in the bathtub
and then you electrocute yourself,
rest in peace, I'm sorry.
Go back.
(laughter)
It had a Celica butt with a longer front end
to fit a 110 horsepower,
2.6 liter straight-six under the hood.
The rest is tuner history.
We covered this car in one of our first episodes
of Up to Speed.
Oh, you know what, that reminds me,
please subscribe right now.
Then, in 1980 the four-door Celica Camry
came out in Japan.
It was just a Toyota Carina with a Celica super front end
but it soon spun off one of the most sedate
and successful sedans in America.
Right about when Indiana Jones was trying
to raid the Ark of the Covenant before the bad guys did.
The redesigned third-gen Celica came out.
It got a full early 80's makeover,
complete with flat body panels,
boxy lines and aerodynamic headlights
that tilted forward just like the Lamborghini Miura.
(piano music)
You are
so beautiful.
The interior took a futuristic leap forward too,
with a digital dash and one of the world's first
in-car GPS navigation system.
In '82 the first turbo-charged Celica
finally went on sale in Japan
and you better believe,
a fire breathing 320 horsepower, group B rally car
and a few 180 horsepower homologation models
weren't far behind.
(car engine revving)
unfortunately, the Celica Twin-Cam Turbo
was only rear-wheel drive
and it really didn't stand a chance
at winning the championship against
it's all-wheel drive competitors.
But that didn't stop it from beatin' up
on it's big brothers, a little bit.
Especially when the fam was road tripping in Africa.
The Celica won most of the WRC rally's
on that continent, over the next four years
and became known as the King of Africa.
It had been almost forty years
since I won Baha and I had been trying to make ends meet
as a comedic actor in Los Angeles.
After ten years of pounding the pavement
and getting rejected at every turn,
i.e., losing every part I auditioned for to Josh Gad.
I mean, what's the attraction?
Anyway, I was feeling pretty lowdown
so I went to the only place I knew I had friends,
my local Pep Boys.
The guys welcomed me with open arms.
We talked through the night, they listened.
Like, really listened.
When the sun came up Jack pointed to a Dojo
at the top of a mountain.
It was time to forge a new path,
to find
a new way.
(inspiring music)
I trained nonstop for months.
Learning everything I could about every possible car.
I did strenuous voice exercises
so that I could scream louder
than any other car host on the internet.
(screaming)
Finally, I began to dream in cars
and I knew that my training was complete.
It was time to return to the mortal realm
and conquer the final fontier of comedic automotive content.
YouTube.
I owe it all to my friends,
Manny,
Moe,
and Jack.
Pep bros for life.
Toyota was totally revamping Celicas every four years
at this point.
The fourth-gen debuted in '85,
in a softer more aerodynamic shape.
And bum, bum, bum.
They switched front rear-wheel drive
to front-wheel drive.
(car engine revving)
The new transverse engine layout
let them redesign the suspension
and add MacPherson struts to the rear,
which gave it better handling.
Dan Gurney's All American Racers Team
started dominating the IMSA race series.
Proving Celicas could hustle around a racetrack
as well as a rally stage.
Even with front-wheel drive.
(car engine revving)
But Toyota still had rally on the brain
because they soon introduced the 190 horsepower,
turbocharged, two liter Celica GT-Four AKA,
the All-Trac.
It was the most powerful two liter to come
out of Japan and this bad boy
had full-time all-wheel drive,
with a center locking differential.
(car backfiring)
The Celica was finally able to beat up
on it's rally brothers, Lars.
And Carlos Sainz,
took home the 1990 WRC Drivers Championship.
Toyota was the first Japanese manufacturer
to race all-wheel drive cars in WRC
and beat the European manufacturers, to win rally titles.
Right on schedule, a super curvy Celica facelift arrived
at the end of 1989.
All the Celicas were vastly improved
with upgraded interiors, smoother engines
and bigger wheels and tires.
Meanwhile, older Celicas were actually winning awards
from the press for their reliability.
The new All-Trac got more aggressive
and everybody but the US got a limited run
of special editions with lighter bumpers,
a vented hood, better intercooler and a new ECU tune.
The newly pumped up Toyota was slaying it, in WRC,
Winning the Driver's Championship,
three years in a row starting in '92.
(car engine revving)
Yep, you guessed it,
after four years of the ultra-round body style,
the sculpted, Supra six-gen Celica arrived in '93.
What, Supra?
Did he say Supra?
Oh no.
The rest of the world got a sweet new GT-4,
making 250 HRSPRS.
And in the states, we didn't get it.
(car engine revving)
That's a shame 'cuz
this was the coolest homologation Celica yet.
It had an upgraded turbo
and super strut suspension,
a lightweight aluminum hood
and a big Supra wing.
What's that?
That's all kind of, normal stuff, you say?
Well, it also left the factory with water injection.
A water sprayer on the intercooler
and all the plumbing needed
for a fully functional anti-lag system.
That's cool as (bleep).
From the freakin' factory.
Toyota's successful racing streak continued
with the new GT-4.
This six-gen Celica was the first rally car
to use an anti-lag system,
which is common practice now.
Rod Millen won the Pike's Peak International Hill Climb,
three times and set a record time that stood for ten years.
(car engine revving)
Toyota Team Europe was still
doing really well in the 1995 WRC season too.
Actually, they were doing really well
until Rally Catalunya, when they were found to be cheating.
- Oh my god,
oh my god.
- Earlier that year, those pesky FIA rules guys
had decided that WRC cars were creeping closer
to dangerous Group-E speeds again
and they made all the fastest turbo cars
install a restrictor plate to limit horsepower
but someone at the Toyota team came up
with a brilliant work-around
that let air go right past the restrictor plate.
Toyota lawyered up and threw a fit.
- No way, you can't punish us.
We had no idea what was goin' on, man.
- The FIA was like, even if it wasn't your idea,
it's still your problem.
Now go to you room.
- Oh, what.
- Guys, I don't wanna hear it.
I will call you when dinners ready.
- I hate you.
- I know you don't mean that.
- Yes, I do.
I wish FIA wasn't my dad.
Some independent teams still ran GT-4's
in the '96 and '97 WRC season
but that was pretty much the end
of the Celica's rally glory.
Toyota took a little more than four years
bringing the seventh and final generation Celica
to the market this time.
They showed a dramatically different concept car
called the XYR at the '99 Detroit Motor Show
and the 2000 Celica came out looking almost exactly like it.
It was angular and chiseled,
just like my pecks.
And the long-running coupe, convertible and GT-4 models
were all axed in favor
of a simpler all hatchback lineup.
The same dude who managed the third-gen MR2 development,
Tadashi Nakagawa was also in charge of the latest Celica.
His mission was to make it cheaper and lighter
Which is he did by eliminating redundant interior controls,
making the sunroof out of plastic
and using a smaller 1.8 liter engine
but it wasn't just any old 1.8 liter engine,
it was a high-revving VVTI 1.8 liter engine.
That means, variable valve timing with intelligence,
you knucklehead.
(car engine revving)
The base GT trim got
the 140 horsepower, 1ZZFE
and the GTS got the 180 horsepower 2ZZGE
which had VVTLI, that means variable valve timing
and lift with intelligence.
You knuckleheads.
So, it was like Toyota's version of an E-tech.
(screaming)
and was one of a handful of engines
with a red line over 8,000 RPMS
and making more than 100 horsepower per liter.
It's such a good engine that Lotus used it
in the Elise and Exige.
There were a ton of TRD performance parts available
and there was even a factory body cat
with a front fascia, side skirts and big boy rear wing.
It was all the stuff car enthusiast should've wanted
but it was all coming at a time
when the import scene was starting to cool off
and more people wanted SUVs.
Sales dropped off fast and furious
and the Celica was pulled from the American market
at the end of 2005.
Over more than thirty five years,
Toyota made millions of the affordable sports cars
and the Celica may now be gone
but it's spirit lives on,
in our heart.
(car engines revving)
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