1985 Toyota Celica GT-S Convertible

Debuting for the 1982 model year, the third generation of the Celica, the A60, was the last to sport the traditional front-engine, rear-wheel-drive chassis layout.

All convertible Third Generation Celicas were done here in the U.S. by ASC of California; 200 in the '84 model year and a few thousand for the '85 model year, which was the end of the line for the angular A60 3rd Gen body style. They were imported from Japan as notchback coupes and handed over to ASC for the roof-ectomy.

The coupe bodies had been specially reinforced on the production line in Japan, and the conversion work wasn't cheap. Base MSRP was a $6500 price bump over the $11k sticker on the hardtop GT-S.

This was a bunch of dough for the time; you could check every option box you wanted on a Mustang GT or Camaro IROC-Z and have a hard time hitting the $17k mark, and you'd get V8 power to boot, rather than the Celica GT-S's 2.4L 22R-E EFI SOHC four cylinder.

The U.S. market was hungry for convertibles in the mid-'80s, having gone through a serious convertible drought for the last decade or so, largely due to stringent rollover standards. The American Sunroof Corporation handled factory convertible conversions on everything from Pontiacs to Porsches. They didn't have any problem selling them

That angular look is so very mid-80s Japanese sports coupe. Celica/Supra, Subaru XT, Mitsubishi Starion, Honda Prelude...they all had that crisply edged style about them. It's also notable that back then you could still market a car as having sporting pretensions with a 116bhp 2.4L four-banger under the hood and a zero-to-sixty time north of ten seconds.

With only 4500 ever built, it's kinda cool that I've spotted three in the neighborhood (these two, plus another red one.)

The Super Red car was photographed in July of 2022 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark III and EF 28-70mm f/2.8L zoom lens, while the Gloss Black one was snapped with a Nikon D7000 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR lens in August of 2020.