6G Celicas Forums

Dont forget about the market... more and more people were moving into the SUV market leaving little space for the performance market. The people in America did not seam that interested in performance (not us of course) but that is another reason why the import of high performance cars diminished.
Why sell a car that does not sell that well?? think about it.

think about this... A few years back there was not more RX7, nissan 300, Mitsubishi 3000 and our beloved Toyota Supra they were all discontinued...

But the market is now changing again and more and more people are looking into the performance cars, that is why the EVO, Nissan 350, RX8 and such are back in town...

Hopefully Toyota will do something to the Celica and bring back the Supra

This post has been edited by Ricky: Sep 20, 2004 - 1:01 PM

definetly agree with that

Well, his point was; that the cars you list have higher "stock" levels of boost. So they go faster. Keep in mind, the 3sgte runs 8 psi stock; thats pretty low compared to the 11-12 psi the cars your listing have. It's not a good comparison, because the GT4 would win speedwise (and a good number of the things you listed) if the PSI was upped

exactly shid gets wut i ment, evo= 19psi stock( practically maxed outt) sti= 15psi if u put those standards in the gt4 it would kill.

I don't think the emmisions was an issue really (when looking at V8s and such that produce way more exhaust). I think it was really that there wasn't enough of a demand to have them shipped overseas.

But I'm sure v8s have a higher standard than I4s. and even I4 turbos. So maybe it was a problem...

cuz it has more hp than NA supra

i think that ths is the main thing b/c think about the market....damn SUVs killin off our imports

if Rally racing was popular in the U.S then Toyota would of bought it over and it would of sold well.

im pretty sure Ricky is right. i read somewhere that back when the gt4 was released (mid to late 1990) , there was a high demand in SUVs and damned mini vans. people werent buying much sports cars anymore. cost and broke people were the cause. so naturally, no gt4 was brought here because it probably wouldnt even sell that well at that time. it wasnt only the celica either that was victimized, rx7 300zx supra amongst others were victims of the loss of interest in sports cars @ that particular time. all these legendary cars werent getting any attention. the enthusiasts were pretty much hybernating back then! who knows where the hell they went... but today is a different story. the car enthusiast is back for more..! i see em everyday riding in them evos, rsx's, & wrx's anyway if u look it up, you'll probably find it somewhere. there was an entire article about it. if ur doing ur report on the celica, u better get an A man!

Errr. The ST205 runs 15psi as standard.

They sold very few ST185s. The ST205 was more expensive than a Porsche 944 new. Would you pay 60K USD for a Toyota in 1994?

99.9% of the US public wouldn't have known a rally car if it ran them over in 1994.

Firstly, don't even think about comparing it with Evos and Wrxs. The car has better handling, is a true rally car (before the 4 door versions and full commercial WRC ones) and its built to last. Toyota is producing so many models that it didn't worth to bring this too.

Sorry, but id say evos and sti's have both evolved past the GTfour's capability. Sorry to burst your bubble, but rally cars have never been defined by a number of doors, or drive wheels, or engine tyup, etc.... only by victories.

I think the reason Toyota didn't bring the GTFour was because the market wasn't ready for it. 1994 was 4 years "BGT" or "Before Gran Turismo". The mainstream still didn't understand the potential of four cyliders and most people would't see the GTFour as a good value. Hell, even to this day I'm suprised at how many people can look at an S2000 and say "that's alot of money for a four banger" or an STi and say "for thirty large I'd expect at least a six".

It may sound silly to pin it on Gran Turismo but if you think back- when did people really start talking about Evos and WRXs and GT-Rs? As I recall it was around the time GT blew up. It's a full on pop phenomenon.

as much as I wish i could agree with you there, this simply isnt true... the GT-4 on a road car comparison mabey, but on the rally scene it was a completely different story. The ST205 was too large to be able to compete with cars from its day, the long nose especially making it difficult to cut corners properly, and second it had an ILLEGAL turbo restrictor that could be adjusted to larger than 34 mm to get more power to haul its sheer size around better... it only one a handful of rallies compared to the dominance the ST185 had enjoyed before it... TTE had to resort to cheating just to make the car competitive with the 555 and Evos in its day, so to say that it is a superior car really dosent make too much sense...

Hmmm. The turbo restriction was a constructive interpretation of the rules. They broke the spirit, not the letter of the legistlation. F1 cars get away with lots more. It was worth another 50-100bhp. And WRC cars really aren't about power.

The reason they dropped the 205 in favour of the corolla was two fold. The kit car rules meant they didn't have to produce a 4wd turbo nutter corolla available for the public, and the corolla was shorter and taller, enabling better vision and yes, it's more useful on the modern tight technical stages.

Subary used to race the Legacy very sucessfully, and that's a biiiig car. The rallys changed.

The corolla, by the way, was pretty much the ST205 chassis, engine and drivetrain but in a different bodyshell.

Oh, and the engine wasn't a 3S-GTE. It was a 3S-GE BEAMs block with a custom turbocharger and head. And pistons. And pretty much everything else.....



It was a damn fine rally car. It's a shame we never saw it fully developed and racing for several seasons.

I cant say i agree that it was an interprtaion of the rules gone wrong in this senario whatsoever... For those who dont know the full story- here it is. For 1995, the FIA changed the rules with regulation turbo restrictor size, going from 38 mm to 34 mm being the maximum allowed diameter. The celica, already in a so-so position being such a large car, now was deprived of its power advantage it enjoyed in the 1994 season (where the car ran only in the later half, replacing the ST185). All three works drivers we not happy with the situation, and in turn, someone made the decision to have a cleverly concealed and highly illegal moveable restrictor fitted to the cars (nobody ever owned up to making the decision officially, but it is believed to have been Dieter Bulling's idea, TTE Chief Engineer). When this part was checked by officials, it looked exactly as the other teams, but internally, it could be adjusted without having to break the seal, which in turn restored the cars power advantage by increasing the airflow... FIA wasnt the wiser for most of the season until the Langley Park stages in Rally Austrailia, where there were side by side special stage runs with 2 cars at once. The celicas were noticeably faster then their similar output and weight competitors, which prompted an extensive investigation. 6 weeks later at the end of Rally Catalonia the FIA released their findings of the turbo air restrictor, which damningly were previously date stamped in May of 95. TTE was in turn banned from rallying for 12 months, and as a result, Bulling resigned. This pretty much sealed the coffin for the ST205, but it did continue to run in privateer hands until the corolla debuted, with the help of TTE works drivers in some cases. Also, the car was continued to be developed within the privateers, with the fitting of conventional struts to replace the fragile "superstruts", active differentials, and a narrower track, which sorted out the early car's erractic handling tendancies... neverthless the car was never a real competitior anymore mainly due to the lack of the big budget that TTE had previously provided.

If you read the regulations they clearly state that "On inspection, the restictor shall be 34mm".

It was. On inspection.

It was exactly the same as the ride hight rule in F1 that stated the cars "shall be 'x'mm high in the pitlane"

They were. The drivers just jacked them down on the track. Farcical I know.

The FIA accepted that all 3 drivers in Toyotas case knew nothing about the 'modification'

the 6g GT4 has better brakes then those cars.

and i meen stock

ive never driven those cars so i wont judge the handling or transmission

but the suspension in the gt4 is very good

I love how you guys are comparing a 10 year old car with cars that is just coming out now, how cool is it to say that toyota beat subaro, etc buy 10 years

I also think that it was more the market for them than anything else, withough a market there is no reson to sell them here, all other factors are less segnificant, (in my opinion)

Side note: i wonder how much it would cast to get toyota to build me a new stock 94 gt4, I bet for the right price I could get one with 0 miles. that would be so tight.

I love the way people comment on the speed and handling of cars they have never seen let alone driven.Ill tell you from personal experience i have foddered many sti's even a 03 wrx sti when i was in stock form. Evos on the other hands are a different matter, I have only ever raced one evo, on a road local to me, and its handling was unbeleiveable.

PS my gt4 runs 12psi stock and 17 psi high boost

Youve also got to look at it another way. When the mitsubishi 3000gt/gto was released in england it cost 48000!! the 300zx cost 35000, probably similar in the us.How many bought these cars? gotta say probably less than 1000. So it wasnt worth bringing the gt4 into the states. If brian used it the the fast and the furious though im pretty sure toyota would have changd their mind lol. Much like mitsubishi with the evo

This post has been edited by uzthedentist: Nov 27, 2004 - 10:20 AM