Built and assembled by Toyota Racing Development with bonafide TRD go fast parts, these used Pro Celebrity Race Cars are no brainers to buy.
From 1977 to 2016, Toyota held a Pro and Celebrity Race that coincided with the Long Beach Grand Prix with special, lightly modified Toyotas meant to handle hundreds of laps of abuse around that tight city circuit. Dozens of these bonafide race cars are on the market because Toyota has no use for them anymore, like this minty 2000 Toyota Celica GT-S with about 13,000 miles for less than $9,000.
Check out a handful of photos I borrowed from the “The ChampCar Garage” facebook group.
omg. 2000 Toyota Celica Pro Celebrity racecar for sale. $8,500. 13,000ish miles comes with fire supression system, exhaust, and race suspension pic.twitter.com/ncpU64VQRX
— Paulo Christmastide just kicked in yo Acoba (@ferio_252) January 2, 2020
As per the owner’s description, this Toyota Celica, like dozens like it, has a full roll cage, fire suppression system, five-point harness, TRD exhaust system, and one-off BBS racing wheels meant to handle a wider tire for more grip.
The real allure of these cars is their pedigree, driven hard by celebrities and professionals on the literal Streets of Long Beach, the only time and place that decal package in purple design don’t look out of the ordinary.
Other than that, everything under the hood is supposedly all stock.
Keep in mind this is the top of the line GT-S with a 180 HP 2ZZ-GE engine. Similar to Honda’s VTEC system, Toyota’s VVTL-I system uses a dual camshaft profile that switches over to a High Cam at a relatively high 6,200 RPM, where peak power is found.
As an avid listener of Adam Carolla’s podcast, Adam’s recapped his experience racing the Toyota Pro Celebrity race, and it’s a several days ordeal that starts well before race day. Toyota takes celebrities, who often have never driven door-to-door, and puts them through a crash course in how to properly race.
Long story short, there’s a lot of hard miles on these cars. Then again, they’re Toyotas, reliable as a barn door.
If you live in and around California, I can imagine you can daily these around and people would “get it.”
If you’re a fan of these Toyotas, want to race in something reliable, or just want to mob around in something unique, this is how you own something no one else does for not a lot of money.
These Celicas would also make great turnkey racecars for super cheap.
