Toyota Caldina GT4 Sport Car Concept

Toyota Caldina GT4 White Styles Aero Dinamist

Toyota Caldina GT4

The Gen 7 Celica was introduced in 2000 and was a completely new vehicle. This new version of the marque is almost certainly the last as Toyota have said they have no plans to extend the model line. When launched the Gen 7 Celica had an all new engine in the form of the 1.8 litre 1ZZ-FE and in 2002 this was joined by the even better 1.8 litre 2ZZ-GE which produced around 190bhp.

The Generation 7 looked completely different from previous models with it's sleeker, swept back, more angular design.

To the dismay of many devotees, there was no Gen 7 GT4 version. This omission was probably due to the fact that Toyota seemed to have no plan to get back into the Rallying world. Having said that though, the Gen 7 Celica still handled particularly well due to it's excellent chassis.

The 190 brake horse power delivers a performance that's and flexible.

At launch, only the 1ZZ-FE VVTi engine, producing around 140bhp, was available. This was much less than the 2.0 litre 3S-GE in earlier cars. Although seen as underpowered, the Generation 7 was resaonably quick and delivered a far better fuel economy than earlier cars.

Toyota and Yamaha combined to produce the 190bhp 2ZZ-GE engine and this was offered in later models of the Gen 7. The Variable Vale Lift engines supplied much more fuel and air to the engine when the revs counter went above a certain limit. This gave the Celica a completely new lease of life and a very distinctive characteristic; up to the point where the variable lift occured, the car was very similar to the VVTi models, but above that an extra 40bhp became available, and the sound of those extra horses was a deligfht to Gen 7 owners.

Toyota announced the discontinuation of both the MR2 and Celica in July 2004, however, the supply of pre-owned cars is still plentiful.