This Celica Was The Last Toyota From The 20th Century

I'm sorry, but in my opinion it was also a shitty one. Even if Regular Car Reviews disagrees.

Back when the last Celica was the new Celica, I remember there was a guy in Hungary who turbocharged these to 400 horsepower at the crank, and he was so good at it that people flew him all over the globe just so that he could build their car. I always felt that was rather unnecessary.

The Celica was supposed to be a fun rear-wheel drive Japanese coupe. When they switched to front-wheel drive, the Celica I grew up loving was dead to me. Sure, you can blame the Japanese economy or Americans feeling bad about their sins in the nineties, but the fact is that if you sell 52,000 units in the first year and only 3,000 just three years later, your car has to be a piece of crap.

A reliable, sporty-looking, cheap to run piece of crap. But even if you rev it to 7,600 all the time to unleash those 180 horses, it still won't thrill like the engine does in a Lotus Elise.

Don't get me started on the Mitsubishi Eclipse...