Toyota does the darndest things, about 7th gen Options

[Terzin1]

It seems to me that Toyota has it marketing strategy shoved so far up its ass that it is regurgitating it all up, but in a bad way. Why is it that Toyota invested so much in the 5th and 6th gen celicas and completely cut everything out of the 7th. the 5th and 6th had convertibles, all wheel drive, turbo, GT/ST models, liftbacks, hatchbacks, humpbacks, what have you. but the 7th gen they did nothing like this save a GT-s model. I have never seen a 7th gen ST before, always been GT's or GT-s. and now they are cutting them from production in North America. Why would Toyota be so naive? Perhaps if they didnt charge so damned much...

[2003cbgts]

yup say bye bye to the celicas... oh well, we still have the ones we own now, so long as we take care of em its all good

[ghostdog]

admittedly they were way off on cutting out the GT-FOUR. look whats hot right now, WRX, EVO. but I think the rest of their 'plan' seems to be working out for them. scions are selling well as did the 7th gens in their first few years of production

not saying I'm happy about it, but I don't think its fair to blame toyota either, they are afterall trying to make a buck like everyone else

as for the st/gt thing. for the 7g the gt was their st model, gts was their gt ..

[Terzin1]

it just seems that they totally changed directions with taking the axe to the Celica and the Mr2. What do they have as a sports car now, the Solara?

[shin]

i think toyota's giving up sports compact for the time being.... but ain't they gonna ressurrect the Supra with the Hybrid v8 500++ hp engine everyone's talking about?

[thedevilmaycrie]

toyota = Family cars/trucks/suv
scion = youth cars/sports compact
lexus = luxery/supercar

the "son of supra" is a lexus

-DMC

[dretti]

agreed. toyota doesn't want any competition against itself. anything sporty will be a scion from now on.

[Digndoug]

One thing is, they already own a good amount of sedans and trucks. As for sport cars, there going to have somthing nice to compete with the other cars out there, let alone to top the Supra.. They will one day soon have another nice sports car.

[orvillescelica]

i have faith in toyota that they will soon come out with something to compete and one again grace the pages of SCC, Turbo, import tuner, and other car magazines. I think they are just waiting until i have the means to buy one...

[Kwanza26]

I personally feel it's exactly opposite. The 5th and 6th Gen Celicas were all essentially recycled stuff from Carmys and Corollas. The overseas models may be a slight exception. The reason they dropped the vert, is because of the Solara which came around in the lat 90's. The 7th gen at least had a unique chassis design, a unique powerplant in the GTS model and a unique suspension set-up, opting for double wishbone rears while most other yotas kept the mac phearson rears. The 4th, 5th, and 6th gens were all essentially the same deal with different bodies...

[macavely]

well i have always liked the 7th gen... if i can find one for the right price i will buy it... yes i love my 6gc.. but its just same old chich just with new cloths on... toyota is the top selling car company in the world (might be wrong but damn they sell alot of cars) so they must be doing somthing right ... yea mitus has the evo ... but they are losing alot of money .. and do ya'll forget toyota has a real nice AWD car they matrix .. which i think is a great cars with lots of portental ... damn i thing the 2zz -ge is a great engine .. and toyota is doing the right things... they aren't going to sell something if it doesn't make them money ... pluse if i don't like what toyota is doing.. there are alot of other car companies out thie that have great cars

[Yota]

I think it has everything to do with the market the automotive industry is in.

Right now, the big push is hybrid vehicles. They're all economy driven. Its just an example of how Toyota is moving forward. You can't stick on one aspect of production forever. You have to keep shuffling around and inventing new ideas and concepts to keep consumers interested.

Here is a thought that just popped into my head..

You mentioned that 7th gen Celicas don't come in a convertible/coupe/hatch and so on like the 6th gen Celicas did...

But isn't the Celica Coupe actually a Curren by Japanese standards? So maybe instead of importing 2 vehicles, they made an option for the Celica (i.e the coupe) so that they could sell more vehicles instead of having hardly any Currens be sold.
Does that make sense?

And as for the 7th gens, there isn't any reason to offer another option of the celica because there was no other car to import along with it..

[saleeka]

I personally feel it's exactly opposite.  The 5th and 6th Gen Celicas were all essentially recycled stuff from Carmys and Corollas.  The overseas models may be a slight exception.  The reason they dropped the vert, is because of the Solara which came around in the lat 90's.  The 7th gen at least had a unique chassis design, a unique powerplant in the GTS model and a unique suspension set-up, opting for double wishbone rears while most other yotas kept the mac phearson rears.  The 4th, 5th, and 6th gens were all essentially the same deal with different bodies...
[right][snapback]252278[/snapback][/right]

I agree with kwanza here. With the exception of the GT-Four, all FWD celicas pre 7th gen were nothing special in comparison to what was on offer from the competition, 6th gens espically, and thats the domestic market im talking about... With 180 PS on tap it was behind the preludes and FTO's of its day, and when BEAMS came out it was then just treading water since the competition had once again uped the ante... Super Strut suspention was a good idea until it needed replacing after 60,000 miles, and 4WS was SS-I only... I love the design of the Celica, but in all honesty in an engineering standpoint they were so-so... 7th gens are better cars imo because the engine does make a good match for the awsome chassis the 7th gen has, even if it isnt as fast as the 'teg competion...

[FallenHero]

ehh, toyota is doing what it can. Nobody would buy a 7th gen when you could get a faster RSX-S with a higher re-sale valuse.

That is why we are getting Scion TC's. when the 200+ torque monster comes out everybody will be impressed.l It'd be sweet if it actually made the 200ish wheel hp. A toyota competitor to the SRT-4 would rock your collective moms.

[Bigmeanbulldog55]

Wate a min, aren't the 7th gens less expensive and faster than the American GT and ST 6th gens? What's wrong with that? Nothing. They don't have the luxury items that they did, but with the 1.8 liter 180hp engine, I'm happy. They MR2's really got suck though, they get no suport from me. If they can make it fast, I'll be happy. They need to do some AWD turbo car. I like toyota but if they don't give me a 250hp AWD turbo car, I'm going to have to shop elseware.

[hs2g]

I'm planning on buying a 7th gen GT-S or a 5th gen Honda Prelude this summer if I can sell my car. The 7th gen GT-S is one of the most exotic looking car in the sportscompact scene.

[Rjb23]

toyota = Family cars/trucks/suv
scion = youth cars/sports compact
lexus = luxery/supercar

the "son of supra" is a lexus

-DMC
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Exactly right, scion is made for younger people with less money to spend. It was made to compete with hyundi and kia, look at the prices of them they are all around $14k. I mean really if you had the choice of a neon, a kia, a hyundi, or a toyota for $14k what would you pick? I would take the toyota(scion), I may even buy a tc when I get a good job, and use my celica as a weekend car.

[boosted_K2]

"son of supra" with over a 100k dollar price tag equals

[Chrobis]

BTW the new MR2's have the best power to weight ratio from all 3 generations. That means the new MR2's powered by the 140hp 1zz-fe are faster then a SW20 with 3s-gte. But alas the SW20 has more tuning options. But what Im getting at is its not slow, itsa sport compact, and a convertible.

[nitemare]

scion? cmon, a sports car? please...toyota is definately dropping down a few levels in that department...I associate toyota with quality foremost. So as long as they stick by building cars that dont break, it doesnt matter if a "scion" is there sports car..It will sell regardless. Long live celica...