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So Toyota’s bringing back the Celica. Toyota insiders first hinted at the Celica’s return in 2023. And when Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda was asked about it at a WRC Rally Japan fan event in November 2024, he handed the microphone to executive vice president Yuki Nakajima, who told the crowd: “I’m not sure if it’s OK to say this in a public forum, but we’re doing the Celica!” Camouflaged prototypes have been spotted testing, and the hot rumor is the new Celica will be powered by an all-new 400-horsepower 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine code-named G20E that will be mid-mounted and drive all four wheels.
Let’s hope the rumors are true. And let’s hope this time Toyota takes better care of one of its most beloved nameplates.
The Celica nameplate debuted at the 1970 Tokyo Motor Show on a stylish little coupe with a long hood and coke-bottle hips. The Celica was, essentially, Toyota’s take on the Ford Mustang. Just like the original Mustang shared much of its hardware with the quotidian Ford Falcon sedan, the Celica’s platform and powertrain was shared with Toyota’s then-new Carina sedan. And like the original Mustang, the first-generation Celica was a huge success, with Toyota selling more than 1 million worldwide before the second-generation model—the first production Toyota to be styled at the company’s Calty design studio in the U.S.—was launched in 1977.
But by the early 1980s, the Celica formula looked tired. Toyota extended the wheelbase and the sheetmetal ahead of the A-pillars of the second-gen Celica by 5.1 inches to accommodate a straight-six engine—changes made in response to requests from U.S. Toyota dealers who wanted something to sell against Nissan’s wildly popular six-cylinder 280Z that would ultimately spawn a whole new model line called Supra. And a Group B rally version of the blocky notchback coupe variant of the third-generation Celica would fight a heroic rear-guard action against the all-wheel-drive Audi Quattros and Peugeot 205 T16s, winning the grueling East African Safari and Ivory Coast WRC rallies three years running from 1984.
But Toyota’s sporty coupe had become progressively heavier and slower over the years, with most of the world denied the sparkling twin-cam four-cylinder engines available to Japanese Celica buyers. And its coil-sprung four-link live rear axle meant its ride and handling was inferior to that of rivals with independent rear suspension such as the Nissan 300ZX, Mazda RX7, and Mitsubishi Starion.
The fourth-generation Celica launched in 1985 changed everything, however. I still vividly remember the impression this new Celica made on me from the moment I jumped behind the wheel. Even before I’d left the parking lot, I could tell this Toyota was special. “What we have here … is a full-on sports coupe,” I wrote in my first drive report for the November 1985 issue of Australia’s long-defunct Motor Manual magazine. “Yes, it’s a Celica, but it delivers—from the wheels up—rather than pretends.”
Remarkably, the fourth-generation Celica, like its predecessors, shared its platform with a sedan aimed at Toyota customers who wouldn’t know a heel-and-toe downshift from a hole in the ground. Even more remarkably, that platform was front-wheel drive. Yet this Celica was quick and agile, light on its feet, a fast car you drove with your fingertips instead of your biceps. “The chassis is nicely balanced and responds well to changes in direction,” I wrote, “yet is stable if you drop a wheel into the rough or back off midway through a corner. The steering is well-weighted, accurate, and responsive, while the brakes are the type you can mash in an emergency or squeeze with your big toe.”
Unlike in the U.S., Australian-spec versions of the fourth-generation Celica were from the get-go powered by Toyota’s superb 3S-GE 2.0-liter twin-cam four-cylinder engine. The engine had been developed, Toyota engineers told me, with several key objectives in mind: It had to achieve the same power as a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-banger and be able to rev from idle to 6,000 rpm in less than a second. The 3S-GE’s thin-walled cast-iron block was based on that of the 2.0-liter single-overhead-cam 2S-E engine used in the Camry, but it was strengthened substantially, as were the crankshaft and conrods. Despite the added weight and complexity of the twin-cam, 16-valve cylinder head, the Celica’s engine weighed barely 30 pounds more than the Camry’s.
The 3S-GE made 138 hp at 6,000 rpm and 128 lb-ft of torque at 4,800 rpm. Ho-hum by today’s standards, for sure, but back in 1985 they were eye-catching numbers for an affordable Toyota coupe, especially as the 3S-GE’s zingy, free-spirited character encouraged you to have the tach needle nuzzling the redline at every opportunity. “Around town it’s pleasantly torquey and refined, pulling smoothly away from the light,” I wrote. “On the open road it revs like there’s no tomorrow, pulling strongly to 7,000 rpm through the gears. … [The] engine is superb, right down to the crackle from the twin exhaust, and can be fully exploited thanks to the excellent dynamics.”
But then a familiar entropy kicked in. There were some other highlight versions of the fourth-generation Celica, most notably the all-wheel-drive All-Trac Turbo (known outside the U.S. as the GT-Four and designed as a homologation car for Toyota’s Group A WRC effort) whose turbocharged version of the 2.0-liter twin-cam four made up to 190 hp. There was also an All-Trac Turbo version of the plump and dumpy fifth-generation Celica. But by the early ’90s, most Celicas sold in America were powered by the pedestrian 2.2-liter 5S-FE, an engine that made its peak power at less than 5,500 rpm and was rev-limited to 6,200 rpm.
America never got a GT-Four version of the sixth-generation Celica. I remember driving it in Australia in 1994 and feeling that while it was damned quick, it felt oddly crude and cumbersome. “I was expecting another Godzilla,” said racing driver Mark Skaife, who’d won the iconic Bathurst 1,000-km race in a Group A version of Nissan’s R32 GT-R, after track testing the car for us at Wheels magazine in July of that year. “It’s a poor man’s GT-R,” he concluded, “and a little bit half baked.” A month later, we placed the GT-Four last in a four-car comparison of roadgoing rally rockets, which also included the Mitsubishi Lancer GSR, Subaru Impreza WRX, and GM’s Holden (a.k.a. Opel) Calibra 4x4. “This is a car heavy to handle, sometimes coarse, always noisy, and very easy for pedestrian drivers to question,” concluded veteran Wheels road tester Mike McCarthy.
The seventh-generation Celica appeared in 1999, by which time Toyota appeared to be losing interest in sports and performance cars. True, the 1.8-liter 2ZZ-GE engine fitted to the Celica GT-S developed a then-impressive 100 hp per liter thanks to an intelligent variable valve-timing system codeveloped with Yamaha, but it couldn’t match the Acura Integra Type R’s 195-hp engine for flexibility and drivability. Toyota dropped the Celica from its American lineup for the 2005 model year amid declining sales.
Toyota ended all Celica production in April 2006. Supra production had ended in 2002, and the company built the last MR2 in 2007, leaving nothing other than worthy but dull hatchbacks, sedans, and SUVs on Toyota’s production docket. Toyota built boring cars, I told Akio Toyoda during a roundtable at Pebble Beach in 2011. I heard much later that the Toyota scion, who had recently started racing under the pseudonym “Morizo,” had taken my comments to heart, that they had spurred him to develop Gazoo Racing as a Toyota performance brand that would ultimately spawn fast and fun cars like the GR86, GR Yaris, and GR Corolla. I don’t know if that’s true, but, hey, I’ll take it.
Against that background, I want this new Celica to thrill me like its ancestor did in Australia more than 40 years ago. More than that, though, I want Toyota to cherish it, to develop it and evolve it as lovingly as Porsche has polished and honed the 911 over the past six decades, not throw it away when the bean counters decide yet another truck or crossover will make more money. The Celica is coming back. Take good care of it, Akio.
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