5th gen celica

Just perusing craigslist. I see a nice 1990 celica gt. Anyone want to save me the google-ing? Looking for a 30+mpg daily/autocrosser

No real weak points besides rust. Not going to win national championships with it, but the 5th gen Celica is one of my favorite easy to live with cars to date.

92-93s are better, but there's not many clean ones left so beggars can't be choosers.

This is a weird coincidence because I wanted these when they were new and have just now thought about picking one up. They seem ridiculously thin on the ground, even 4th gens are hard to find. I used to think Miatas were hard to find until I started looking into this obsession.

Out of maybe a dozen cars available, the four nice 5th gens are all double my expected budget. Everything inside my budget has a) a nuked engine, b) some horrible fault that relegated it to ran-when-parked status 15 years ago, or c) enough air fresheners on the interior pictures to hide a grow-op from a police dog.

The only good part is that rust doesn't seem so bad (in pictures) as other cars of its vintage. Parts also seem pretty cheap, guessing there was a lot of Corolla parts bin raiding going on.

Hard to find on enthusiast forums for sale too. I hate buying cars from normal people - all the work you have to do to seem like a sane, responsible adult who's not going to take the car by the scruff of the neck and melt the tires a minute after the title is in your hand.

They don't share much with a Corolla if anything at all. Lots of Camry stuff. The ST models have corolla engines and transmissions but the chassis is totally different.

They stopped being common about 5 years ago. They were long lived almost to a fault. They tend to not really start to need much attention until well past 200k miles, at which point people just trash them.

The enthusiast boards for these cars largely suck and I'd probably rather just buy one from CL.

Clean ones could still be found for $2k or less 5 years ago but I think those days are over.

Look at 6th gens as well. Easier to find, essentially the same car.

I've been keeping my eyes open for something economical and toss-able for quite awhile now. Its incredible how in just the last few years all of my favorites from the early 90s have pretty much disappeared.

I am legitimizing this purchase based on the idea that we will need a car to drive back to SC from NY after a visit in December. If I pass on the car I'll post it on here.

whats the difference between a gt and a gt-s that bodystyle?

carbon wrote: whats the difference between a gt and a gt-s that bodystyle?

GT was available in coupe and hatch. GTS was just hatchback, and were all widebodies like the AllTrac.

GTS was available with more options, like System 10 stereo (awesome) and more often leather equipped. The GT could be had with leather, but it's very rare.

My dream daily driver (aim high!) is a 92-93 GTS fully loaded with a CS/RC bumper. My choice for a dual purpose autocross car would either be a 92-93 GT coupe or 92-93 ST if lightness is most important at the expense of some grunt. The coupes are quite a bit stiffer.

And just because it's been forever since i've had a reason to post this: My old 92 GT.

If they have the electric rear steering, that's a troublesome system. They're pretty reliable apart from that.

GameboyRMH wrote: If they have the electric rear steering, that's a troublesome system. They're pretty reliable apart from that.

Not available in North America. That's ST183 GT-R only.

We only got the AT180, the ST184, and ST185.