CELICA 1970 to 1977

[alan duncan]

The 1st celica to come to the UK in 1971 was the TA22 Flatlight,as it had flatlightd at the rear,the Gas filler was in the centre of the rear panel under a pull down flap
the dash of the ST was wood look




The GT Flatlight did not make the UK it has a silver Dash a 1600 twin cam/twin carb



There was a RA25 lift back but it did not make the UK ether and it too is worth a lot more cash.This was a Lift back with 5 lights at ether side with the same pull down flap for gas ,it had straight lines on the bonnet




In 1973 Toyota changed the celica it was now known as the Bubble Light same as before St with the wood look and the GT with the silver dash ,the GT as before having the leather wheel and gear knob.
The LT was a cheaper model it had just one carb and a dial less on the dash board.
The ET was the Basic model one carb,a black Dash,although basic it is now very rare and would get over 10 grand for one





In 1976 Toyota changed the model to a TA23 Coupe and in 1977 a RA28 Liftback ,this was the 1st celica to make it to the UK.
There was now a reshaped bonnet a new Dash on both the 28 and the 23



A 28 from canada LHD



The best of the Mk1s being the GTV Elec/windows,Oil temp dial ect,you can see lots o pics of each model on this link
www.flickr.com/photos/tec_club/sets/72157594151265767/

[alan duncan]

The early RA and TA 40s had round lights,The Ra was the 2,000cc engine which was in the Liftbacks In the UK and the TA was the 1600 cc engines that were In the saloons, The GTs were twin OHCs with twin Webers.The STs were pushrod engines with twin solex carbs
Same as In the 1st gen







The GTs had S/S Dashes

The UK conversion was by a firm called Griffith International set up under licence from The Griffith Company in Florida by Richard Elliot-Square. 12 seems to be the commonly accepted figure for new cars converted at Tickford in Coventry under a batch production scheme, and these seem to have been available through Toyota dealers but not necessarily as official cars. Uk price was £5055.59 for the car PLUS £2923 for the conversion....That's a total of nearly £8000 in 1981 - No wonder sales were limited! But later Tudor-Webasto took the rights and were offering conversions to new and used Celicas(I've seen a round headlamp model converted). BUT......a figure between 2000 and 3000 were produced in the USA in LHD format ( I also own one of these with production plate number 788), and a German firm called Tropic took Sunchaser rights as well as a full convertible model. Also they were available in Australia, but I don't know how many or by who.
I'm always looking to learn more about these unusual cars, and realise the original comment was taken from Brian Long's book on the Celica, but the facts aren't exactly accurate. There is an American website at www.pitt.edu/~chirdon/sunchaser/index.html, but it doesn't seem to have been updated recently.
Thanks for reading this, Ian Condliffe


The 1st Celica Supra came out In Japan In the 13th April 1978.
It was called the Celica XX In Japan it had a 2.6 SOHC Inline 6
21st August The engine was now a 2.8 SOHC