1988 Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo Was a Learjet for the Street

From the November 1987 problem of Automotive and Driver.

A whole lot of good issues are available spray cans lately, however status is not one in every of them. Status nonetheless comes the old style manner, borne on waves of public esteem. Ripples of honorable point out aren’t sufficient; it takes crashing waves of approbation to loft individual, place, or factor into the distinguished higher ranks.

Contemplate the automobile enterprise. Everyone is aware of the distinguished and near-prestigious manufacturers as a result of—effectively, you simply know. That is how status works. Mercedes has obtained it, and so does Porsche. Cadillac is slipping. Honda is a comer, regardless of its low-price stigma. And the oddsmakers at the moment are touting Ford as a protracted shot.

Within the ceaseless jostling for a spot on the status dais, Toyota has but to seek out its opening. The corporate does the laborious issues of carmaking conspicuously effectively. Its vehicles are as dependable because the yen. Their high quality is phenomenal. Their noise and vibration isolation is superb. Their controls—notably the throttle linkages and the shifters—are splendidly correct and freed from friction. And a few Toyota fashions are licensed heroes. When was the final time something lower than bouquets was tossed to Mister Two?

But the tidal waves of status nonetheless hold their distance from Toyota. What’s an bold and gifted automobile firm to do?

How about constructing a showcase? A automobile thus far past its maker’s earnest repute that the world lastly wakes up and takes discover? A automobile so seamless in its advantage and heroic in its content material that status can now not be denied?

How about a couple of boatloads of unique Celica All-Trac Turbos to place some juice into the identify “Toyota”?

It is a fairly great automobile, this hormone-injected Celica. And we are saying that with the complete realization that one man’s great is one other man’s “Hmmm, attention-grabbing, however …”

The present Celica is a slick rendition of the traditional two-plus-two, hatchback-coupe thought. “All-Trac” is Toyota’s American­-market time period for four-wheel drive. And “Turbo” on this case denotes a sixteen-­valve four-cylinder with 1998 cc of displacement, all overrated and intercooled to 190 hp. The result’s a horsepowerful four-wheel-driver of modestly extroverted look.

All of this mechanical pleasure has been extruded by Toyota’s distinctive sense of how a particular automobile ought to behave. The Celica All-Trac Turbo is comfy, quiet, and refined—the kind of automobile you may commerce in a BMW for with out feeling as when you’d taken a step down.

In different phrases, that is the gentleman’s all-weather interceptor.

So…whaddaya suppose? Does the introduction of this showcase change your appraisal of Toyota?

Most likely the reply comes all the way down to the gentlemanliness of your automobile style. For those who suppose alongside the strains of accountable transit—say, a greater Audi Turbo Quattro for fewer bucks—that is the automobile. Its worth has but to be introduced, however we’re guessing about $20,000 for an All-Trac with a full complement of kit, together with leather-based upholstery, an influence skylight, and anti-lock brakes. When the climate is threatening and you want to get to the opposite aspect of Nebraska within the least period of time, the Celica All-Trac Turbo is the subsequent neatest thing to wings.

Okay, however as an instance your pursuits run to extra (heh-heh) vivid pursuits, like rat racing on Mulholland Drive and pushing your individual private g-sensor into the purple zone. The calculator suggests {that a} 190-hp Celica must be 41 p.c extra zowie than the 135-hp Celica GT-S, which clicked off a 0-to-60 time of 8.1 seconds in our final check and cleared the quarter-mile in 16.0 seconds at 85 mph. Forty-one p.c greater than that ought to seize your full consideration and maintain it for ransom.

However the Celica All-Trac Turbo goals increased than that. Toyota, in any case, is a high-minded automobile firm. Why create a mere sprinter if you’re able to a decathlon champ?

Remembering again to the beginning of the mission, Toyota engineers say they weren’t after a automobile that was merely highly effective. Nor did they focus solely on 4­-wheel drive. They wished a robust automobile that would put all of its energy to the highway, but wouldn’t compromise the refinement that Toyota sees as a part of its identification.

All of this was completed in due time—at a value. The All-Trac Turbo you see within the photographs crossed the size at 3295 kilos, up 592 kilos from the entrance­-wheel-drive GT-S. A precise weight comparability is hard, although, as a result of sure GT-S choices are normal within the new automobile. Toyota says the bottom All-Trac Turbo weighs 532 kilos greater than the bottom GT-S, and there could be little level in splitting the hairs any finer. You get the thought. A whole lot of bulking up is required of a decathlon contender.

All of this weight stems from three sources. Horsepower provides weight. The engine block has been strengthened, for instance, and the turbocharger and its plumbing and its air-to-water intercooler all add kilos. Horsepower provides weight to the drivetrain as effectively. A 190-hp clutch weighs greater than a 135-hp clutch.

Then there’s the four-wheel-drive system. Toyota did not lower any corners right here. It is a full-time association, with a middle differential. A viscous coupling limits the slip of the entrance wheels relative to the rears, and the prop shaft by the middle of the automobile consists of three items and 4 U-joints, a design that retains driveline noise and vibration from disturbing the passengers. Further isolation has been offered by mounting the rear suspension and differential on a subframe.

The third supply of weight has to do with Toyota’s view of how a Toyota showcase ought to behave. It must be a silken surprise: no buzzes from the four-cylinder, no thrums from an excited underbody. So darn close to the whole lot within the automobile was stiffened up a bit. The engine-mount brackets are stiffer, the mounts themselves have been retuned, the floorpan is all new and stiffer, and the entrance construction is stiffer. It is the previous story: a couple of kilos right here, a couple of there, and fairly quickly you are making deep tracks.

Toyota engineers are philosophical about all this further weight. They are saying that refinement inevitably provides kilos, and that there was some laborious bargaining between the engineering division and the product-planning division about how refined the All-Trac Turbo must be. They suppose the compromise, because it was lastly hammered out, is the lightest it might be at this stage of refinement.

The testers on this journal are much less philosophical. Those that place a excessive worth on low mechanical ruckus are impressed. From the texture of the engine, you’d by no means know it is a 4: there’s nearly no vibration to offer away the clamorous little secret. The exhaust be aware—and maybe the heft and frequency of the ability pulses—are the one clues. That is an unique with charm-school manners. The online impact is moderately like a Learjet for the highway.

These of us who place a excessive worth on the zowie issue are impressed, too. The All-Trac Turbo betters the Celica GT-S’s 0-to-60 time by 0.8 second and its quarter-­mile efficiency by 0.4 second and three mph. The All-Trac’s high velocity is 135, up 13 mph. These aren’t the 41-percent enhancements that the calculator predicts, however they’re going to do exactly high-quality. On the earth of gents’s interceptors, this new Toyota is true up there with such luminaries because the BMW 325is.

The All-Trac would not all the time shine so brightly, nevertheless. On the skidpad it turns in solely 0.74 g, down from 0.82 within the GT-S. And its stopping distance from 70 mph is 202 ft—the longest we have ever recorded for a automobile outfitted with anti-lock brakes. Given the burden improve and the truth that the All-Trac wears the identical measurement rubber because the GT-S, such mediocre grip is not too stunning.

So, once more, whaddaya suppose? Does the efficiency measure as much as the mission? We return to the thought of status, and to the associated notion of the gentleman’s all­climate interceptor. Status within the automotive sense incessantly comes from efficiency you possibly can’t use. What number of Testarossa speedo needles do you suppose are nonetheless ready to see that final 50 mph of arc on the dial? What number of Corvettes are whipped by the twisties at 0.86 g? What number of All-Trac Turbos will likely be required to get to the opposite aspect of Nebraska as rapidly as doable in inclement climate? Possibly the purpose of exotics, whether or not they’re Ferraris or Toyotas, is that you may…you may actually do the deed…when you needed to. In any other case, they’re merely heartwarming machines for piercing the dullness of Interstate journey.

The Celica All-Trac Turbo by no means fails to be heartwarming. Its inside is little modified from the GT-S, but it surely appears good, with white-on-black gauges, slick controls, and a relaxation for the left foot. Due to a multiplicity of seal and steering-column changes, one measurement matches all. The seat cushion tilts. An influence button on the console deftly summons lumbar assist and fine-tunes the higher aspect bolster for kind of lateral restraint. With the elective leather-based, the All-Trac is a first-class compartment for the driving force.

The All-Trac’s exterior look is simply sufficient totally different from the GT-S’s to sign the knowledgeable observer with out attracting the gawkers. From the bumper line down, the plastic panels take a extra streamlined form. Spherical fog lights in entrance and an “All-Trac” decal on the tail are outstanding indicators. Few will discover the V score of the tires.

The satisfaction of this automobile are principally wired into the driving force’s workplace. It matches so effectively. Its controls are so slick. There may be so little ruckus from beneath. But if you push on the pedal, there’s that extravagant surge that eludes the test-track devices. Furthermore, the All-Trac is sort of a bullet on the highway. It has a really positive sense of straight forward on the Interstate, but it is agile within the twisties as effectively. We did not have an opportunity to attempt our pre-introduction pattern in nasty climate, but it surely comported itself well within the dry at Portland Worldwide Raceway. An excellent four-wheel-driver ought to go about its enterprise with out calling consideration to itself, and the All-Trac does precisely that. Its solely racetrack clue to four-wheel drive is its lack of throttle steering. This is without doubt one of the few vehicles round through which the suitable pedal makes you go sooner or slower, and nothing else.

In conceiving this automobile, Toyota gave itself one of many hardest assignments in automobiling—the refined efficiency automobile—and it succeeded admirably. However will its achievement deliver status? Not unanimously, we expect. “Good efficiency” could be extensively appreciated by the go group, and “excellent refinement” is the best of the cruisers. However refined efficiency, by definition, will come up quick on each elements of the mix.

So, if the staffers of this journal are any indication, the Celica All-Trac Turbo is without doubt one of the most controversial vehicles of this season. Let’s simply depart it at this: For those who agree with the mission, you may delight within the machine.