GLAD i didnt buy a celica instead...
 

on my way home from work tonight, a red celica GTS pulled up next to me, reving his fart can exaust, and scooting up and rolling back down the small hill... so i thought, eh what the heck, why not see what hes got, so i started doing the same thing... with out the fart can.... i thought for sure i would get smoked... my 150 something hp matched with 5spd, and prolly a little more weight, VS his 180 hp 6spd...
but either celicas are slow, or this guy cant drive for $h%*... before even shifting into 3rd i had a good car length and a half on him, so i just turned on my flashers and made a u turn back in the direction of my house.... are celicas really this slow, or what?
i would really like to know, i have always been a fan of them, but not so much anymore, does anybody have something good to say for the little toyota?

You talking about the 7th gen cheese-block lookin ones? The GTS 1.8 VVTL-i should run high 15s if my memory serves me right, so I'm guessing the guy just couldn't drive worth a shit. He prolly should've smoked you but good kill anyway.

+1 for Mazda

yeah, that one.... he spun the tires like crazy... and the engine sounded like it had seen better days... or maybe that was the paint can type exaust he had on it? idk, but it pretty much made my night.

I had a GT-S back in 2000 when they came out. It was my first new car.

I ran 16.03 at 90mph when I trapped at KC International Raceway back in 01.

To do that, I ripped the exhaust off at the muffler bearing (located about halfway through the pipe), and I ran the stock suction cup tires on the front (while I had some new shoes on the back w/ different wheels), and quite frankly I let it rip down the whole thing.

Not bad, but definitely a high-strung car. My experience with that car is that it had numerous shifting problems, including a problem with two throwout bearings (don't think it can take the RPM's), and most of the transmission synchros (same problem)

I have a similar story. Sitting at a red, silver Celica 7th Gen.

No revving, just light hit green, we both went. I figured he'd blow past me, I was just toying around. To my surprise, I pull off the line a bit faster, and while I don't gain any ground, neither does he.

It was like the cars were matched up in power, as neither could take the lead.

I figured that his Celica should have had much more power than my little 2.0.

I let go of the gas around 70mph, as we were still sitting even, he blows past me as I slow down, on come the flashers :D

(btw, it was a light leading onto a 60 max highway, I wouldn't drive 70 in city)

yeah, sometimes its not always about whos car is faster, its about who has the balls to keep speeding with the risk of getting pulled over. some people just dont care, id like to keep my 550 dollars

im really good friends with a chick who has a 02 celica gts...the really sporty lookin one and i drive it all the time and it is slower than my 2.0 07'mazda3 overall...but they do have some good higher rpm power but from a stop...i have no doubt i would beat it pretty good

It was a light leading onto a freeway ramp, 2 lanes. Essentially a 0 to 60mph run, all legal as the freeway is a 60 zone. We both kept going until 70, which is when I backed off, and the Celica kept speeding ahead.

Re-read the post, I'm sure I had already made both of those points.

Heh .. funny you say that cuz the Celica has an even "little-er" 1.8 :)

Really? I thought it was a v6...

Or is it like the Mazda6, with both engines available?

no, only a 1.8,
very high revving engine though... dual cams i believe, what ever toyota calls it, V V T L? something like that.

I drove one 4 years ago. And I remember how hard it's pulling itself up from a hill. I can still remember the smell of the clutch burning trying to pull it off from an incline in one of the streets in Jersey City.

I'm driving my 3 on the same roads I drove that Celica 4 years ago and noticed how the 3 is a lot better than the Celica.

VVT-i (Variable Valve Timing with "intelligence") in the GT models, and VVTL-i (Variable Valve Timing with Lift and "intelligence") in the GT-S models. It's pretty much Toyota's copy of VTEC if you wanna think of it that way..

VVTL-i just kicked in yo.

The 7th gen celicas r nice!!! or at least my girl's, cuz hers totally killed me when in my stock 3 hatch. she has stuff done to it and totally keeps the engine maintained very well. her gts just has an exhaust (not the fart-can kind) and intake, and she was still able to beat me off the line. then when her vvtl-i kicks in at like 5000rpm it just screams at my window like crazy!