Remembering Japanese cars from the past

Tag: 4t-gte

Hearty swapped Carina GT-TR with lots of love – Carina Sightings

Hearts and love surround this Toyota Carina GT-TR TA63. Let me explain to you why! I was split between posting this in Carina Sightings and Family Album Treasures, so I’ll post it in both.

First heart: the girlfriend

In this first photo, you can see a girl posing next to the Carina GT-TR. Her name is Kobayashi Koto (小林古都) and according to the ex-owner of this Carina in the 1990s she used to be a model in the 1980s. She was most famous for being the model featured on the 1987 Bridgestone calendar. We can only assume she used to be his girlfriend as she has her arm wrapped around him. Or at least, as much as we can see of him in that photo. She is clinging to him so much that she must have loved him very much. Unless he was in her friendzone…

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Carina Sightings: Murakami’s Toyota Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo

I just got back from three weeks vacation where I packed a couple of unfinished books to read and never expected to find this level of awesomeness in a book! Basically while nearing the end of Haruki Murakami’s Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World I suddenly had a big surprise: he describes a Toyota Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo!
Flyrat Toyota Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo
The book is first published in 1985, but one of the dates mentioned is Sunday the 2nd of October. The only viable year that features this date is 1983, so the storyline must have taken place in 1983 (S57). The story is what they called cyberpunk back then and encloses a futuristic view on the new technology that gets available in the early 1980s.

Near the end of the book the main character in the story needs to rent a car, preferably an European:
I checked the yellow pages and jotted down the numbers of four car-rental dealerships in the Shinjuku area. None had any European cars. Sundays were high-demand days and they never had foreign cars to begin with. The last dealership had a Toyota Carina 1800 GT Twin-Cam Turbo and a Toyota Mark II. Both new, both with car stereos. I said I’d take the Carina. I didn’t have a crease of an idea what either car looked like.
He made an excellent choice and of course I do have a good idea what either car looks like. 😉

While the story continues and he picks up the car it turns out to be in the white shade. I’ve searched the Google images for a long time to find a suitable face-lifted white Carina TA63 from 1983 that looked (almost) bone stock. The only one I was able to find was this one that got sold by Flyrat a few years ago with ill matching wheels, but other than that in almost original condition: Continue reading

The sound of the 4T-GTE

The AE86 and the FT-86 aren’t the only cars by Toyota that actually had the 86 designation in them: the Toyota 86C was a Group C racer by TOM’s featuring the infamous 4T-GTE engine (also to be found on the TA64 Toyota Celica rally car!).

This one lap of video is driven by Masanori Sekiya on the Fuji International Speedway in 1986:

I love the sound of the big ass turbo and the blow off valve! Amazing!

Ove Andersson and his TA64 Toyota Celica

This cool video shows how Ove Andersson’s driving is being monitored in the 4T-GTE Twincam Turbo Celica by the TRD engineers in the early 80s. Simple setups with rubberbands and pullys, a single registration unit… Back in those days state of the art technique!

I love it how easy and relaxed Ove is driving: full throttle, steering madly and driving on the edge wearing nothing more than a tiny helmet, a pair of sunglasses, a polo and shorts. And that 4T-GTE sound! Awesome!!

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