Talk about contrast. I had just patted myself on the back for finishing off the massacre - sorry, review - of the Honda CR-X Del Sol, sat back, and then saw a post on my 'starter car' thread on GTPlanet where a fella by the name of n1nj4ofshr3d put forward the 1991 Toyota Celica GT-Four for the title of 'best starter car of all time'. Here's his post:
'I used this back when I didn't care about being the same car as the series, (convertible in convertible, etc...) I didn't tune it 'till the races that were 394 or over, and it got to a point that I had only the little guy in my garage. I got a racing modification for the rally races, and it never won a single race. I still think to this day the Celica is the best starter. Winning just about every race in the game says enough for its reputation. It even won the Super Touring Car races, and the GT300 championship.'
A bold claim to make, and especially seeing as it's a car I've never driven before, it's one I simply had to put to the test. So the other potential starter cars I was going to review can wait until I've tested this wannabe rally star to death and seen whether the claim that it can beat the majority of the game on it's own from off the forecourt at the start of the game onwards has merit.
First impressions are very good. Firstly, it's one of the most powerful starter cars you can get - I thought the 197hp Honda Prelude 2.2 VTEC had an impressive power-to-credits ratio, but here you get 221hp right out of the box, and when you marry that to 4WD and rally car pretensions, you can really begin to see that potential for world-beating greatness. This impression only increases more when you take it out on a track, where it drives so crisply and effortlessly that if someone tapped you on the shoulder and told you the car weighed 1400kg, you'd laugh in their face and tell them to stop sniffing so many carbon monoxide fumes.
Seriously, this car is a blast. Acceleration is smooth and powerful, with rolling dips and hills being dealt with effortlessly. Corners are comfortable and devoured without the nimble Toyota even breaking sweat, and only if you give the car excessive amounts of speed on corner entry will you force the dreaded understeer to emerge, upon which the car will cuff you over the head for being a bonehead. Actually, such errors are pretty difficult to do, seeing as you'll more often than not be braking miles before you need to for every corner, largely because you'll feel like you're going much faster than you actually are. On the flip side, this is a car that rewards good drivers by lavishing speed and easy drivability onto them - I can't stress enough how easy it is to ring the maximum speed out of this car, as it's somewhere between effortless and not even particularly taxing.
All of this means that there was no threat of a repeat of the embarrassing near-defeats the Honda CR-X suffered in it's test races. The Sunday Cup run was probably the easiest race I've ever run, and despite a desperate bit of GT2 rubber-banding and the best efforts of the suicidal Yaris, I still coasted home with a good 3-5s gap on the opposition in my back pocket. I exceeded the horsepower limit for the first GT Japanese Championship race, so I decided to give the old Celica a real test and enter the 2nd race (295hp limit), and after much furious late-braking and panel-bashing with the opponents, and despite ceding age, weight and horsepower to the opposition, I managed a highly respectable 3rd place, eventually loosing out to a 1999 Honda S2000 and Mitsubishi 3000GT, respectively.
So the Celica is certainly living up to the tag of 'best starter car in the game' thus far, but here comes the clincher: all of the above testing was on a completely stock chassis. Not only will you have money left over after every race to plough into hop-up parts, but this car is turbocharged, meaning that a simple strapping on of upgraded turbos (up to stage 3 for 45,000) and intercooler means that you can expect a good 100+ extra HP before adding extra engine and exhaust upgrades. Allied to this car's excellent handling straight out of the box, you can quickly see the potential for greatness. Oh, and what did this car get famous for again? Would that be rallying at lunatic speeds through forests in a certain red, white and green Castrol livery? Well, take a look in the Racing Modifications section, and...yeah, exactly.
So from one extreme to the other - from a car that looks sporty but is struggling for fitness and barely looks capable of winning the Fatigued Snail 500, to a car that looks capable of taking on all comers in the Gran Turismo universe - and winning. Oit, Justin Bieber, pack that never say never shit in - this is a true rags to riches story.
'I used this back when I didn't care about being the same car as the series, (convertible in convertible, etc...) I didn't tune it 'till the races that were 394 or over, and it got to a point that I had only the little guy in my garage. I got a racing modification for the rally races, and it never won a single race. I still think to this day the Celica is the best starter. Winning just about every race in the game says enough for its reputation. It even won the Super Touring Car races, and the GT300 championship.'
A bold claim to make, and especially seeing as it's a car I've never driven before, it's one I simply had to put to the test. So the other potential starter cars I was going to review can wait until I've tested this wannabe rally star to death and seen whether the claim that it can beat the majority of the game on it's own from off the forecourt at the start of the game onwards has merit.
First impressions are very good. Firstly, it's one of the most powerful starter cars you can get - I thought the 197hp Honda Prelude 2.2 VTEC had an impressive power-to-credits ratio, but here you get 221hp right out of the box, and when you marry that to 4WD and rally car pretensions, you can really begin to see that potential for world-beating greatness. This impression only increases more when you take it out on a track, where it drives so crisply and effortlessly that if someone tapped you on the shoulder and told you the car weighed 1400kg, you'd laugh in their face and tell them to stop sniffing so many carbon monoxide fumes.
Seriously, this car is a blast. Acceleration is smooth and powerful, with rolling dips and hills being dealt with effortlessly. Corners are comfortable and devoured without the nimble Toyota even breaking sweat, and only if you give the car excessive amounts of speed on corner entry will you force the dreaded understeer to emerge, upon which the car will cuff you over the head for being a bonehead. Actually, such errors are pretty difficult to do, seeing as you'll more often than not be braking miles before you need to for every corner, largely because you'll feel like you're going much faster than you actually are. On the flip side, this is a car that rewards good drivers by lavishing speed and easy drivability onto them - I can't stress enough how easy it is to ring the maximum speed out of this car, as it's somewhere between effortless and not even particularly taxing.
All of this means that there was no threat of a repeat of the embarrassing near-defeats the Honda CR-X suffered in it's test races. The Sunday Cup run was probably the easiest race I've ever run, and despite a desperate bit of GT2 rubber-banding and the best efforts of the suicidal Yaris, I still coasted home with a good 3-5s gap on the opposition in my back pocket. I exceeded the horsepower limit for the first GT Japanese Championship race, so I decided to give the old Celica a real test and enter the 2nd race (295hp limit), and after much furious late-braking and panel-bashing with the opponents, and despite ceding age, weight and horsepower to the opposition, I managed a highly respectable 3rd place, eventually loosing out to a 1999 Honda S2000 and Mitsubishi 3000GT, respectively.
So the Celica is certainly living up to the tag of 'best starter car in the game' thus far, but here comes the clincher: all of the above testing was on a completely stock chassis. Not only will you have money left over after every race to plough into hop-up parts, but this car is turbocharged, meaning that a simple strapping on of upgraded turbos (up to stage 3 for 45,000) and intercooler means that you can expect a good 100+ extra HP before adding extra engine and exhaust upgrades. Allied to this car's excellent handling straight out of the box, you can quickly see the potential for greatness. Oh, and what did this car get famous for again? Would that be rallying at lunatic speeds through forests in a certain red, white and green Castrol livery? Well, take a look in the Racing Modifications section, and...yeah, exactly.
So from one extreme to the other - from a car that looks sporty but is struggling for fitness and barely looks capable of winning the Fatigued Snail 500, to a car that looks capable of taking on all comers in the Gran Turismo universe - and winning. Oit, Justin Bieber, pack that never say never shit in - this is a true rags to riches story.
Rating: 92/100
Spec Sheet:
Engine Type: L4 DOHC
Displacement: 1998cc
Power: 221hp/5900rpm
Torque: 224.85 lb-ft/5000rpm
Dimensions: 4420mm x 1690mm x 1305mm
Weight: 1400kg
Drivetrain: 4WD
Machine Testing:
0-400m: 0:15.391/89mph
0-1000m: 0:28.155/117mph
Top Speed: 155.23mph
Engine Type: L4 DOHC
Displacement: 1998cc
Power: 221hp/5900rpm
Torque: 224.85 lb-ft/5000rpm
Dimensions: 4420mm x 1690mm x 1305mm
Weight: 1400kg
Drivetrain: 4WD
Machine Testing:
0-400m: 0:15.391/89mph
0-1000m: 0:28.155/117mph
Top Speed: 155.23mph
