Toyota’s given up on both the Celica and Supra these days. The used market means you can still have them, and in fact today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe contender is both! Let’s see if its two-models-for-one-price makes it the ultimate single-car package-deal.
I used to like to read my kids this book—If You Give a Moose a Muffin—which was all about how all actions have consequences and how Moose are annoyingly pushy houseguests. Last Friday we had a 1990 Mazda RX-7 that had been given a GM LT-1 V8 and six speed stick, and the consequences of that gift was a respectable 58% Nice Price win for its fifty-five hundred price. Now, on to the competition!
Toyota may have lost to Porsche in a squeaker at Le Mans yesterday, but does the company really have any performance bonafides to defend these days anyway? It seems like in the company’s current line up the only thing they have with “Sport” in its name has that sobriquet followed up with the word “Utility.”
It wasn’t always like that. At one time Toyota had a series of modestly-sized RWD cars that each offered sporting pretension, and together made the company half-way interesting. One of those was the pocket horse pony car, the Celica. That one spawned a long-nose GT edition dubbed the Celica XX in Japan, or the Celica Supra here in the States.
Here we have a 1983 Celica Supra, in black over black cloth, and looking very natty. It sports the famous bulldog underbite, pop up headlight elongated nose that made this generation so memorable. Behind that it’s pretty much Celica hatch, but that’s not a bad thing.
The Supra also gained a cool sunshade over its back seats, a feature that made a lot of Celica owners totally jelly, and which many of them adopted for their own four cylinder cars.
This one appears by its fender flares to be the P model, as opposed to the more luxury-oriented L. Each carried the 150-bhp 5M-GE DOHC straight six under its hood, and here, also befitting a P instead of an L, this one backs that up with Toyota’s W58 five-speed stick.
The seller describes the exterior as an 8 out of 10 and the interior as a 9 on the same numerical scale. He says that there are a few imperfections in the paint, commensurate with 33 years of duty, but that it has been meticulously maintained over that time.
That seller would be the second owner, and he also claims to have put only about 5,000 of the 116,542 miles on the clock over the past six years. That’s not a lot of exercise but the time was probably taken up with all the washing and waxing.
The car comes with a stripy cloth interior rocking sport seats with sphygmomanometer bulb lumbar adjustment. The dash is a replacement unit, and the carpet has also been refreshed. Tinted glass all around should help all that ‘80s cool keep its cool.
Things haven’t been left alone mechanically either. The fuel system, including the tank has been redone, and there’s a new starter and battery and a fresh change of oil in the car’s recent history too. A little concerning is the claim of an EGR delete which means it won’t pass the visual inspection anywhere where they do a visual inspection. I know that getting rid of the EGR is something that’s somewhat common on diesel engines, but I’ve not seen it done on a fairly modern gas engine.
Aside from that, the ad claims the car runs and rives strong and that all the fiddly bits—power locks, sunroof etc—work as you would want. The car comes with a clean Texas title.
Back in the day Toyota tied the Supra to its Celica base to build off that model’s popularity. Eventually, when the Celica went FWD the Supra dropped its hyphenated moniker and carried on with its solo name. Today, Toyota builds neither—nor.
To relive the era when you could get two Toyota model names under one hardtop roof, you might want to consider this seemingly well-maintained example. To do so, you’d need to bring $5,500 to the table, the same as last Friday’s V8 Mazda. What’s your take on this Celica Supra and that $5,500 price? Does that make it seem like a deal to buy Toyota nameplates in bulk? Or, is that price too much for just one car?
You decide!
Dallas Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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