Sick Cylinders Man: 1982 Toyota Celica Supra P-Type
In 1982 Toyota upped their sports car offering by redesigning their Celica and adding more beef to the inline-6 option known as the Celica Supra. Of course the one you want is known as the P-Type, which sounds like something only available to urologists, but actually mean Performance-Type as opposed to the more luxury oriented L-Type. Find this 1982 Toyota Celica Supra P-Type offered for $3,500 in Western Massachusets via craigslist. Tip from Jdah.
The P-Type had identical mechanical/powertrain/suspension as the L-Type, but it had fiberglass fender flares covering unique (possibly wider?) alloy wheels, sporty adjustable seats and a standard limited-slip-diff out back.
Under the hood the Celica Supra got a 5M-GE 2.8 liter inline-6 with 12-valves that put out 145 horsepower and 155 ft-lbs of torque — not exactly killing it in today’s horsepower crazy world, but decent for 1982 (consider that a 1982 Corvette made 200 horsepower from its 5.7 liter V8). With just a little bit of rust repair and fuel system sorting, you could be driving this thing around in style.
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Man, did I lust after these in high school, they were definitely superior to the Camaros and Mustangs of the day, not to mention the crummy, overweight, 70's iron most of us were driving.
Was going to say the same thing. I wanted one of these so badly in high school I could taste it. What did I get to drive instead? The 61 Austin Cambridge my dad bought for $75. Guaranteed not to go over 50 mph because it couldn't. (Thanks Dad)
$3500 seems reasonable. And least 18 year old me would have thought so.
Yeah, college friend bought one of these, it was brilliant.
Okay, these days you can probably get a Li-Ion-powered lawnmower with those kinds of numbers.
But…the car's still special, great ergonomics, spectacular material quality, the chassis is only okay and can you really buy 225/60-14 tires any more?
The question is, do you preserve it as a period-piece (in which case you get stomped off the light by VW Golf TDI wagons while you luxuriate in the best seats Toyota ever made) or do you 'modernize' it with a 2JZ-GTE (or, God forbid, an LS3) and some 17in wheels?
I would not hesitate to put a 2JZ in there, you could always keep the original motor and trans if you ever wanted to return it to stock or leave it as an option to a future buyer if resale is in the future plans. The 1UZ is another good choice, I've seen a couple nicely done swaps with that motor. Now and then you can find the Toyota Crown V12 on ebay, usually around $4-5k….that would be a very cool swap I think.
As for the wheels, I love these original OEM ones. There are a few companies the cut the faces off of one piece OEM (or OEM style) wheels and barrel them to whatever specs you want, including increasing the diameter (usually via step lips, but I have seen 'rings' that are larger than the diameter of the wheel face attached to the original face and then the barrel, converting them to three piece wheels of a larger diameter). Someone on Supraforums had these particular wheels made in 17" with nice lips, they looked great…..it's cool to see a really old, familiar style but with the modern deep 3-piece look.