Sharp lines, sharp moves
Sometimes beauty is more than skin deep. It's true of people more often
than we like to admit. It's even more often true of machines. Experienced
engineers will tell you that when it looks right, it works right.
That brings us to the current Toyota Celica, with its racy, razor-edge
lines, looking like the very embodiment of high-technology performance.
And guess what: Its looks aren't lying.
Celica is light on its feet and tenacious in turns. Its energetic engine
loves to rev, and you can keep the mill spinning with a six-speed gearbox.
One of our contributors compared the GT-S version to a motorcycle on four
wheels, the automotive equivalent of a screaming, hyper-horsepower
super-bike.
True, perhaps, except that Celica is no exotic. It's a straightforward
little machine that's heavy on fun and light on the wallet.
Celica was redesigned for 2000, and has not changed significantly since
then.
Walkaround
The Celica's styling is based on Toyota's XYR concept car (for Xtreme,
Youthful, Racy), which made the rounds at major auto shows a few years
ago. The Celica's 102.3-inch wheelbase is long for a compact coupe, and
its front and rear overhangs are short. That long wheelbase with short
overhangs emphasizes the Celica's athletic appearance.
Designers at Toyota's southern California studio drew inspiration from
Toyota's racing program. The channel down the Celica's hood is supposed to
recall the needle nose of an open-wheel race car. The long, vertical
headlights are intended to suggest the endplates of a race car's front
wing. A mesh grille, new for 2002, adds a note of brutal functionality.
The racecar cues are subtle. However, the Celica's blend of organic curves
and razor-sharp edges is anything but subtle. These contrasts aren't
necessarily clean or elegant, but they are dramatic and by no means ugly.
Celica's striking headlights make it look expensive. The Celica's styling
is particularly bold by Toyota's usually edgeless, conservatively
industrial standards.
Interior Features
As you might expect from a sport coupe, the Celica offers tight quarters:
intimate for average-size people, perhaps cramped for larger folks. The
front seats allow height adjustment, but they lack variable lumbar
support. The optional leather upholstery ($660) looks and feels rich.
The rear seat provides a surprising amount of space for a 2+2. A
toe-operated lever on the front passenger seat allows it to slide forward
for easier access to the rear compartment. The rear seat folds to expand
cargo space.
The dashboard starts with a simple, clean, cross-compartment design. The
gauges have orange script on a black background. Switches are easy to find
and operate, particularly the stereo controls. The center console has a
storage rack for eight CDs or ten cassettes.
Occupant safety remains a priority in the Celica. Side-impact beams guard
against intrusion, and side airbags deploy from the front seats. The seats
themselves are built with a one-piece back frame designed to limit
whiplash injuries, and many interior trim pieces are deformable to soften
impacts. The Celica is the first Toyota that shuts off fuel delivery if
the airbags deploy.
Driving Impressions
Central to the Celica GT-S driving experience is a high-strung, high-tech
engine that loves to rev. With its high (11.5:1) compression ratio and
more aggressive valve timing, the GT-S engine develops 180 horsepower at
7600 rpm and 133 foot-pounds of torque at 6600 rpm. It is one of only a
handful of production engines in the world that produce 100 horsepower per
liter of displacement without supercharging and turbocharging.
Throttle response is adequate through about 6000 rpm, and then, as if
someone threw a switch, Toyota's VVTL-i kicks in and the Celica squirts
forward with real urgency. The GT-S should manage 0-60 mph runs in the
upper seven-second range. But far more satisfying is tackling a twisty
back road, and working the shifter to keep the engine spinning balls-out.
The red area on the tach starts at 7800 rpm, but that leaves another
500-600 rpm before the rev limiter interrupts the fun. And the engine
keeps pulling strong, without flattening out, the whole way there.
The only downside is that the GT-S engine gets loud, just when it's
hitting the sweet stretch in its power band. There's an abundance of
intake and valve noise, made more noticeable because the engine feels so
smooth.
The GT-S shifter works very well by front-drive standards: smooth,
accurate, and direct. The E-shift automatic is equally impressive. Its
controls work intuitively. Pressing one of the buttons on the front of the
steering wheel shifts the transmission one gear up, while pressing a
button on the back notches it down one gear. The electronics do very
little thinking for the driver. E-Shift holds the gear you select, even
with the engine bouncing off the rev limiter. It works as well as similar
systems on some of the most expensive cars in the world.
The Celica's seats are comfortable and grippy, and the pedals, in both
placement and operation, work well. Enthusiast drivers will appreciate the
perfectly placed dead pedal, as it allows them to brace themselves with
their left leg during energetic drives.
One of the best things about the Celica GT-S is that it corners nicely,
and relatively flat, without a harsh, small-coupe ride. The
optional16-inch tires are sticky. Steering is quick and accurate, and the
feel through the wheel transmits clear information about how much grip the
front tires have left. The chassis tightens its path through a curve when
its driver lifts of the gas. Only the harshest, most abrupt maneuvers seem
to unsettle its rear end. Overall, Toyota gets high marks for chassis
tuning.
Celica also deserves high marks for build quality. There were no creaks or
rattles in the unit-body or trim panels.
In all, we found the GT-S to be a well-balanced sport coupe. With the
exception of its peaky engine, no particular component stands out, yet it
all blends together very nicely.
The same theme applies to the base GT, which we've sampled as well. Its
tires aren't as grippy, and its four-cylinder engine is not as smooth. Yet
it delivers just as much torque through three-quarters of its rev range,
and unless you constantly push the tach into the red zone, you might never
notice the difference.
Final Word
Introduced in model-year 2000, the current Celica is the seventh
generation of a line of sport coupes that began in 1971. It is lighter and
faster than the previous-generation Celica, an impressive feat among
today's overweight vehicles. Sharing parts with other Toyota products has
held down the Celica's price, which shows smart manufacturing.
Bottom line is that there's a solid sporty coupe beneath the Celica's
new-wave skin. Potential buyers attracted by the edgy styling will find
more than enough substance to go with this car's racy looks.
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