One of the challenges of selecting the Pick of the Day is that too often we find interesting vehicles only to discover that the selling advertiser doesn’t provide much information about the vehicle.
Today is a case in point. The Pick of the Day is a 1986 Toyota Celica GTS liftback (click on the link to view the advertisement) that should prove particularly popular with the growing interest in cars from the 1980s and ‘90s.
Making this car perhaps even more attractive is the private seller’s asking price of $6,900. By the way, the seller is in Warrenton, Virginia.
OK, so the car has been driven 214,000 miles through the years, but the seller is the original owner, who has accumulated that mileage, assures that the car has been very well maintained, and has a new air-conditioning compressor, condenser, evaporator and lines.
It also has a new power steering pump, rack-and-pinion steering gear, new parts throughout the suspension, including tires, plus work on the engine that includes alternator, front seals, and timing belts.
“Runs exceptionally well. Recently detailed,” the seller adds, and the advertisement reports that the car has power brakes, steering, locks and windows, and tilt steering.
The engine is Toyota’s 2.0-liter 3SGE twin-cam 4-cylinder, a fuel-injected powerplant which in 1986 was rated at 115 horsepower. In this car, the engine is linked to a manual transmission, presumably Toyota’s 5-speed unit.
Toyota introduced its sporty Celica model in late 1970 and the car entered its four-generation for 1985, when it switched to front-wheel drive from a rear-wheel setup.
Personal note: Back about the time this gen-4 Celica was getting its early miles, I was the motorsports editor at AutoWeek magazine and one of our British correspondents had purchased a red Toyota liftback just like this one, though perhaps a year or two newer.
He was very proud of this purchase, though the car we know as the Celica and pronounce as Sell-i-ca, he called the Sa-leek-a.
Sell-i-ca or Sa-leek-a, the car was and still figures to be a fun driver.
To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
