Toyota presented the Celica as their response to the Ford Mustang of 1964.
The Celica Mk1 lasted a surprisingly long time, staying in production until 1977. The Celica here, spotted in Oslo in 2021, doesn’t at all look as butch as a Mustang. This is the 2-door hardtop (there was a three-door liftback) which is more likely to Continue reading “Imagine the Spin of the Willowherb Hawkmoth, Can You?”
Here we’re back in Dublin for a look at some vintage Toyota goodness.
The last items of my personal possessions to linger in my childhood home are a stack of Autocar & Motor/Autocar magazines, from the period 1989 to about 1997, the last year of childhood and the early years of adulthood. This is a period when one is getting use to how the world is, to what constitutes normal. For most of human history it was likely that you could Continue reading “Montain Green-Veined Whites – Everywhere.”
Toyota City upstages Europe.
Editor’s note: A version of this piece was originally published in April 2016 as part of DTW’s Japan Theme.
From a purely commercial perspective, the Toyota motor company appears to have fared perfectly well without the benefit of image-building halo cars. While enthusiasts have been well served by innumerable performance versions of regular production models over the intervening decades, the Japanese car giant has largely eschewed outright exotics. Not so fast however. As long ago as 1965, crowds at the Tokyo motor show were captivated by the introduction a sleek and beautifully proportioned coupe from that most cautious of Japan’s burgeoning carmakers. Deliveries began two years later, but by the decade’s end, and after a mere 337 cars, the Mayfly Toyota 2000 GT disappeared as quickly as it had emerged.
The story (as commonly told) begins in the early 1960s. German nobleman and designer, Graf Albrecht Goertz[1] had forged a successful consultancy in the United States, having been involved in the design of a number of post-war BMW models, most notably the acclaimed 507 roadster. Commissioned by Nissan to assist in the design a two-seater coupe, he is said to have drawn up a low-slung concept, a running prototype of which was subsequently built for Nissan by Yamaha. Nissan’s management however opted to adapt their in-house Fairlady model along different lines, introducing it as the highly successful 240Z in 1970.
Undeterred, Yamaha pitched the concept to Toyota and to their surprise, they elected to Continue reading “Toyota’s First Supra-Car”
Ponycar à la Toyota City.
Toyota chose the 1970 Tokyo motor show to reveal their own style of pony car to the world. Clearly influenced by significant occurrences with such cars as the Mustang, Firebird and Camaro over in the United States, not to mention a gentlemanly nod to the European Capri, Toyota (with assistance from Yamaha) contributed their own version of mass produced self-indulgent motoring.
Using a Latin derivative, coelica to suggest something celestial or heavenly (in Spanish) and given code name TA22, the Celica’s modus operandi was to Continue reading “Heaven Sent”
The public lost interest in these cars: inexpensive coupes.
The flame flickered out between 1999 and 2006 for the seventh generation Celica. It had one engine in two states of tune and this terrible A-pillar. Continue reading “Micropost: The Detriment”
Driven To Write 