1991 Toyota Celica g four from UK and Ireland - Comments

Exhaust developed a 'blow' at the flexible joint, this required a replacement. Due to Toyota prices, decided to opt for a Mongoose full system, which was £300, compared with £170 for just the flexible joint from Toyota (the mongoose system was a full system, from the cat back).

The car is very good fun to drive, very good acceleration (0-60 in 6.3 seconds) and the acceleration feels just as quick from 50 - 100, which makes it very quick for overtaking. The car has the same horsepower as the Subaru Impreza WRX at 225 bhp, so is a very fast car on the road, add four wheel drive and you have a very fast way of getting from A to B.

Handling is very sharp and predictable, with very little body roll.

The car comes very well equipped, with climate control, air conditioning, full electrics - including electric fold in mirrors and electric controls.

One downside of the car is its fuel consumption, which seems to have very little relationship to how the car is being driven. As turbocharged cars operate a low compression head, when the turbo is not being used the engine is not operating efficiently. At the other end of the scale if the turbo is being used heavily it will use a lot of fuel. So therefore the mpg seems to be around 20-25 every time, regardless of whether it is driven very easily, or just normally.

The car has a very nice sleek shape and this alone makes it a very desirable car, couple this with the brilliant 'bullet proof' engine, and the 4 wheel drive system and you have a very nice, fast car, provided you can live with the 25 mpg. Although this is common with all similar cars, with the current Mitsubishi Evolutions averaging little more than 15mpg!

All in all excellent car, great fun to drive, very attractive.

As a rule I could not agree more or less with the comment`s, the gt4 handles v.v. well the power leaves a bit to be disiered, but all in all a quick car.

It is possible to get 40 mpg (I drove from Kingston s.w.london to oxford 74 miles on £13.50p worth of petrol 85p per liter) I recently got rid of an rxd7 type r a quick car by any standards, but the thre gt4 is so much quicker on the corners and a much better day to day car, it has a boot for one thing.

I f you are reading this trying to make your mind up whether to by a gt4 then I cannot recomend it more highly as a good performance car and an exelant all rounder.

M...London.

Unfortunately the previous person to make a comment is confusing this GT4 with the GTi, which has 154bhp. The GT4 has 205bhp.

Further to the above reply, the early ST185's had 205bhp, whilst the later spec 1993 ST185 had 220bhp, the same as the CS/RC version. Plus, for very little money (circa £50) they will be pushing out 240bhp.

I'm hoping to buy a celica gt4 rc, but the bhp seems to change from site to site. 205/225/230??? wot is the correct spec for the japanese spec st185 gt4 rc? also the 0.60 times seem to slow at 7.6!! this must be a low 6 second car? any help on this would be great.

I've recently owned a 1992 ST185 GT4, but had to get rid of because the Big End bearing went.

According to www.gt4oc.net, the Bhp of the ST185 is 201, but the Carlos Sainz & RC etc are around 225.

The ST185 are getting old and have been said to have lost power, it depends on the condition of the engine.

Regarding the 0-60, the common figures are 7.6 seconds like you said, though it's a lot closer to 7 seconds flat, maybe a tad under (6.8, 6.9), standard - again.. depends on condition and modifications. Not forgetting they are Very Heavy, the bonnet is very heavy and the boot etc.

Mine was about 6.3 seconds with a mongoose cat-back exhauust and Pipercross induction kit.

If you get a good normal ST185 with service history etc, it should give you a healthy 190bhp with a 0-60 around 7 seconds. Though do check out www.gt4oc.net, excellent site with lots of information and experienced members to answer any of your questions before you buy one.

I have just seen for sale a celica gt4a. I've never heard of a gt4a?

Not sure, but it probably means GT (for the car), 4 (for all wheel drive) and A (automatic).

Did they do a gt4 auto?

No gt4 auto, prob gt4 group A same as carlos sainz), euro and us st185 201-205ish bhp, some say the jdm is 225.

To provide some clarification (I'm a former GT-Four owner; sold my ST165 recently and am saving for an ST185), the GT-Four A models are a Japanese version of the car. They had the regular air/air intercooled 3SGTE engine rather than the air/water intercooled RC/CS models. They were the widebody version of the car, and featured a decent list of options like power windows and A/C. These cars are pretty much identical in options and specifications to the USDM turbo-Alltrac or Canadian Turbo-4WD cars. Due to Canada's importation laws being a bit saner than here in the US, early JDM ST185s are now available for importation there. If you're in Canada, have some money to spend, and want a GT-Four, the Japanese cars typically have very low kms. Just get a GT-Four A or GT-Four RC model if you want the luxury touches that come with the Alltracs. A good, free forum to learn about these cars is Alltrac.net. The people there had helped me out through three years of owning my ST165, and their collective knowledge on those cars is extremely amazing.

Yep, gt4-a japanese spec gt4, I drive one so I know. No such thing as an auto gt4 as far as I know. Have heard the early jdm 185`s like mine were 225bhp, but will obviously differ from car to car (mods, condition etc, etc) 0-60 can`t say, but it feels very fast + you`ll hit it in second. Bit tail happy in the wet, but that just makes it all the more fun.

Yeah, I drive a GT4 RC. I've heard they're in the low 6's like 6.3 or something. Also I had a go at my friend's WRX; I was with him the whole time, so pretty much even! I was proud. My 91 RC gave his 02 WRX a wicked challenge. Turbo spools up a bit slow though LOL. It's awesome though, wicked all rounder car!

Same fuel consumption if you drive it easily or normally? If you drive the car with great care and very slowly, the fuel will go into the engine very slowly, if you give it stick then it's going to use more petrol. If the car goes faster when you put your foot down, it's because more fuel is going into the engine, why would Toyota make an engine that used the same amount of fuel no matter how you drive it? Forget LPG and hydrogen and electric cars, use a Celica engine, because it uses the same amount of fuel no matter how you drive it, more speed from no more fuel, that's incredible.

Even if it did burn the same amount of fuel at lower speeds, you would have more torque because the extra fuel in the pistons, or you would have loads of smoke or backfire from unburnt fuel.

The car in fact DOES use the same amount of fuel regardless of the driving speed. This comes from experience, a full tank driven up to 100 km/h and revved up to 4500-5000 rpm, average consumption 18.2 L/100km, another full tank driven 60-180 km/h and revved up to 7000 rpm and more, average consumption 18.6 L/100km.