Junkyard Find: 1983 Toyota Celica GT
During my last trip to California, I found this ’80 Celica coupe and this ’81 Celica liftback side-by-side at an Oakland self-service yard. A few rows away was another Celica. Apparently the old 22R-powered Celicas aren’t worth enough to keep on the street.
I’ve always thought the R engine was way too truck-ish for a sporty car like the Celica; all low-end torque and industrial clattering noises. You can’t argue with its reliability, though.
Toyota couldn’t match Mitsubishi for spaceship-style interiors, but this setup looked pretty futuristic.
Every time I see one of these things, I am reminded of this shot from my (1984) high school yearbook. Since most of my classmates drove beater Colts and Pintos— if they drove at all— the kid with the new Celica was feeling pretty sharp.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Loved the styling on these and dreamed of having such a "cool car" in high school. In college I got my wish. Had an '83 ST coupe (ST had the 96 hp carbed 22R) and a loaded '85 GT-S Convertible (124 hp in '85). The '82-'84 models were pretty low on power (22R-E had a different head after '84), but the ST models only weighed about what a 2nd generation Miata did. My convertible was purchased to replace the '83 after it was stolen (~1996). After the '83 was recovered I sold it to a brother who finally blew a head gasket at 230K. Traded in the convertible at ~200k after it developed a habbit of eating EFI computers. Still miss the GT-S seats.
I've had a few of these over the years. The last one was a bit of a "Hot rod" during a headgasket change i decided that if i could get the compression up a little it might be more fun. After talking with a local guy who raced 22re's I found that if you cut .030 off the head it'll bump the CP up to around 10-1. Talk about a screamer. Couple that with a lightened flywheel and stage 3 race clutch kit. Really woke the old thing up.