Back in 1971, Toyota began selling two new models based on the same platform in North America: the Carina and Celica. The Carina sold poorly here and disappeared without making much of an impression after a couple of years, but the sporty-looking Celica was a sales success. An enlarged version with a six-cylinder engine and Celica Supra badges showed up on our shores starting in 1979, with the Supra’s Celica background getting decreased emphasis in the following years. For the 1986 model year, the Supra became bigger and more evil-looking, while the Celica name got transferred over to a brand-new design based on a front-wheel-drive platform derived from the T150 Corona. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one of those first-year front-drive Celicas, found in a Denver car graveyard.
The rear-wheel-drive Celicas were affordable cars that looked good and made commuting more fun, just like the early Ford Mustangs. The split between the economical Celica and its performance-oriented Celica Supra sibling got increasingly confusing for car shoppers as the Supra became more of a competitor for the Chevrolet Camaro and Nissan Z-Car, so it made sense to create a new Celica that returned to the model’s roots.
The rear-wheel-drive (non-Supra) Celicas sold in the United States all had members of the Toyota R engine family under their hoods. The R was originally developed for use in the Toyopet Crown sedans and RK trucks (as well as forklifts), and the Rs that went into US-market Celicas were the same sturdy, torque-emphasizing mills that went into Hilux pickups of the time. They sounded like truck engines and revved like truck engines, which always seemed incongruous in an alleged sporty car.
The 1986 Celica got non-truckish S engines of 2.0 liters’ displacement; the Celica GT-S got a DOHC version rated at 135 horsepower while the Celica ST and GT got a 2S-E SOHC producing just 97 horses.
With a five-speed manual, which this car has, 97 horses would have been enough to make this 2,551-pound car reasonably fun. Starting in the 1988 model year, a turbocharged version with the All-Trac all-wheel-drive system went on sale in the United States.
This generation of Celica was available here as a liftback and as a notchback coupe. A convertible version became available in the United States for 1987.
The MSRP for this car was $10,398, which amounts to something like $27,037 in 2023 dollars.
It has air conditioning, which cost an extra $705 ($1,833 today), plus other options that would have pushed the out-the-door price well base the base figure.
It just squeezed past the 200,000-mile mark during its 37 years on the road.
The interior still looks nice after nearly four decades. This car was treated well by its owner or owners.
Other than some areas with old body filler cracking off, the sheetmetal looks great.
