1987 Toyota Celica GT-Four Coupe

Description

Toyota’s frontline weapon in the World Rally Championship during the late 1980s was an all-wheel drive version of the popular Celica sports car, the first time a Japanese manufacturer enjoyed real success in Group A, leading the way for a new generation of rally cars from Mitsubishi and Subaru.  Badged the GT-Four in road-going form, the ST165 Celica was powered by Toyota’s advanced 3S-GTE turbocharged 2-litre engine with Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection and four-valves per cylinder, developing around 190bhp.  Distinguished externally by round fog lights in the bumper and special badging, a facelifted ST165 appeared in October 1987 in line with the front-wheel drive Celica, featuring a new grille, tail lights and alloy wheels.  The centre diff on early GT-Fours was manually lockable whereas later ones came with the viscous-coupling limited-slip diff.  Debuting in the 1988 Tour de Corse, the Celica didn’t taste succcess until Rally Australia the following year.  Spaniard Carlos Sainz helped Toyota achieve their aim of World Rally Championship success in 1990, winning the Acropolis Rally, Rally New Zealand, the 1000 Lakes Rally and the RAC Rally to claim his first world driver’s title.  Sainz almost took back to back titles, narrowly losing the 1991 crown to Lancia’s Juha Kankkunen.  The ST165 GT-Four was Toyota’s first homologation special based on the Celica, the first in a line that extended through subsequent ST185 and ST205 models until 1999 and surviving examples have become increasingly collectible in recent years.