- Here is a special rally homologation Celica that was never originally sold in the US
- This has extra power and an air-water intercooler.
- It also has relatively low mileage and has been in the United States since 2021.
When Toyota announced the return of the Celica nameplate, the normies in the audience were probably wondering why all the diehard fans started hyperventilating. Sure, Celicas of the past have been interesting, but they’ve all lived in the shadow of the mighty Supra. How good can a reborn Celica be?
This 1991 Celica is for sale on Bring a Trailer (what, like Car and driverpart of Hearst Autos), could go a long way toward answering that question. It’s a Celica GT-Four RC, a turbocharged, all-wheel drive rally homologation special from the days when driving a Toyota around a gravel stage in the Sega Rally arcade machine was about the most fun you could have for 25 cents.
The original Celica of the 1970s married coupe styling with typical four-cylinder Toyota reliability, but by the end of the 1980s the Celica had become a true performance icon. The Turbo All-Trac arrived in 1987 in very limited quantities (basically one per dealer), with 190 horsepower from a 2.0-liter turbo engine and all-wheel drive.
Abroad, the All-Trac was known as the GT-Four, and the latter is still such an iconic name in Japan that you’ll find it on the side skirts of the GR Corolla, its rally-fighter descendant. This example is a second-generation GT-Four, and also the ultra-special RC version, which received all kinds of extra features so that Toyota’s WRC team could make their competition car faster.
The engine is the same 2.0-liter inline-four found in the standard GT-Four or All-Trac, but with output up to 231 horsepower and a water-to-air intercooler for better charge cooling. The RC’s ECU had more aggressive mapping from the factory and the bodywork was subtly revised for extra cooling. The transmission is a five-speed manual driving all four wheels, with a limited-slip differential at the rear.
The exterior of this car is quite subdued in a medium gray metallic paint, but the white 15-inch Oz Racing wheels are pure WRC jewelry. The organic styling is pure early nineties, as are the pop-up headlights, and any rally fan will notice that this is something special.
On the inside, grippy seats and a Momo steering wheel provide pleasant contact points. There’s a Kenwood stereo with Bluetooth capability (we looked it up, and you can get the 30th Anniversary Sega Rally soundtrack on both CD and streaming), and also a blissful lack of screens.
With the equivalent of 89,000 kilometers on the odometer, this car hits the sweet spot of low mileage, but not so low that you can’t regularly top up the odometer. Despite its rallying heritage, it probably deserves better treatment than hammering it around the salty roads of the East, but given the current deep-freeze conditions everywhere, it’s a true all-weather classic.
Please note that this car is located in California, but has not passed that state’s emissions tests, so it may not be road-registerable there. However, it has been in the US since 2021, so it has some history here.
Many Toyota fans have fond memories of the shoddy all-wheel drive Celicas of this era, either because they owned one or because they had just launched a digitized version via a jump over the top. A new show Celica that is in the pipeline is something to get excited about. But why wait?
The auction ends on February 10.
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Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up on British cars, came of age in the golden age of Japanese sports compact performance, and started writing about cars and people in 2008. His special interest is in the intersection between man and machine, whether it concerns the racing career of Walter Cronkite or the half-century-long obsession of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to constantly buy Hot Wheels.
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