1994 Celica GT-S?!?!, Whaaat Options

[946thGenGT]

I've been a long time Celica driver ('86 GT-S) and am now moving up the chain. A local dealer had a car advertised in the paper as a 1994 Toyota Celica GT-S. Now... As far as I know, there is no such car. I went to check it out, and it just seemed to be a GT, but on the back it indeed did say GT-S. It had the 5SFE motor, so there was no difference there. I assumed at first that maybe the car had just been rebadged, but after I learned the history of the car I started to wonder if that really was the case... The previous, and only, owner of the car was a middle-aged guy who apparently babied the car to death. There wasn't a thing in the car not stock, there wasn't even a cd-player... just the factory cassette deck. I don't see why on earth someone would just throw GT-S on the back for the hell of it, especially some middle aged guy who didn't do anything else to the car at all... So I considered one more thing - maybe where I live, in Canada, they released the GT as a GT-S instead. However, I found that when I went to get an auto-insurance quote online from government insurance, after I select Celica GT-S I am unable to select any year between 94-97. So then I did some browsing through Canadian Auto Traders and found that there were indeed a few more GT-S Celicas in years that there shouldn't be.

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So I'm confused. I highly doubt the car was rebadged and it doesn't seem likely that the car was released in Canada as a GT-S... so what the heck is up? The only other thing I can think of it that this dealer himself has rebadged the car to try to squeeze a few more dollars out of it, but I know the fellow personally and am doubtful of that as well. I have yet to consult the dealer about the discrepancy, but I thought I would ask here first if anyone knows of the Celica GT being released as a GT-S in Canada or anywhere else. Thanks.

This post has been edited by 946thGenGT: Oct 4, 2004 - 12:29 AM

[saleeka]

Canadian model GT-S is the same as the US spec GT with sport suspention option package- thats it. Dosent REQUIRE leather, sunroof, ect, but because toyota builds cars with "popular option groups" its hard to find one without those features... Aussie models SX and ZR are equivalant to JDM SSI and SSII if im not mistaken- meaning 3SFE and 3SGE motors...

This post has been edited by saleeka: Oct 4, 2004 - 10:33 PM