Junkyard Gem: 1983 Toyota Celica GT Coupe

Once Toyota began selling enlarged Celicas with six-cylinder engines and Supra badges here in 1979, the Supra kept getting more powerful and more expensive and the regular four-banger Celica seemed less exciting with each passing year. For the 1986 model year, the Celica went to a brand-new front-wheel-drive platform and became a true slick-looking commuter machine, while the Supra became a genuine Camaro rival. Today’s Junkyard Gem is an example of the Celica generation just before that split happened, found in a self-service yard near Reno, Nevada, last fall.

The Celica’s dragon boat emblem design goes back to the early Carina-based cars.

The U.S.-market 1982-85 Celicas could be had as notchback coupes or two-door liftbacks, with convertible versions sold here for 1984 and 1985. These notchbacks are generally harder to find than the liftbacks.

The retractable headlights are exquisitely 1980s.

This one came from the factory with a fuel-injected 2.4-liter 22R-EC engine, a low-revving SOHC motor that was extremely sturdy but better-suited for truck use than it was for an allegedly sporty car. Horsepower was 107 and torque was 137 pound-feet in this application. 22Rs tend to get pulled quickly by Toyota truck owners when they show up in the boneyards, so this engine compartment is empty.

The base transmission was a five-speed manual, but this car has the extra-cost four-speed automatic.

212,676.8 miles showing on the odometer, which is decent for an early-1980s car. The highest-mile Toyota I’ve found in a car graveyard was a 1988 Tercel 4WD wagon with well over 400k on the clock.

The interior is on the rough side and the body has some fender-bender damage, but there’s no significant rust (which is very rare for Japanese cars of its era but not so rare in bone-dry western Nevada).

There were three Celica trim levels available here in 1983: ST, GT and GT-S. The MSRP for a 1983 Celica GT notchback with automatic transmission was $9,039, or about $28,108 in 2023 dollars.

This one doesn’t have air conditioning (a $630 option, or $1,959 after inflation), but its no-extra-cost factory AM/FM radio is very nice for 1983. If you wanted a cassette deck with equalizer in your new ’83 Celica, the price tag was $440 ($1,368 now).

Toyota’s advertising for this generation of Celica emphasized the liftback.

The right stuff for the right time, right now.

As always, the home-market ads are more fun.