By Robert Emslie
If they hadn’t been as busy developing the Lexus brand at the time Toyota may have gone ahead and built a production version of the technologically advanced 4500GT concept car. And for that, I would like to say… thank you Lexus!
Image: CarStyling.ru
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4.5L 40v DOHC V8. Six-speed rear-mounted manual transaxle. Double-wishbones at both axles. Cruising speed of 186mph.
It had a lot of things right. Looks? Not one of those things.
What’s even worse is that the front is the car’s best angle. It’s even worse from the rear.
Courtesy embed:
http://www.carstyling.ru/Static/SIMG/420_0_I_MC_jpg_W/resources/concept/1989_Toyota_4500GT_04.jpg?4E4BBA163C4FD83F6DD9676DD2D3F58F
Strangely…I like that.
Likewise.
Whoa. Reminds me a lot of the Mid Night Club Honda Today.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c636453b821fdcd3b27a548800614e3c52b4435ba272c32308ee1947d7c810f.jpg
Clean and simple.
Can’t imagine why.
http://www.worldspeedcrewcup.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2013-Volvo-C301.jpg
Now that you say that…but there’s really a lot of simplicity and personality in the concept above. Great combo.
Looks like something AMC might build, if they’d survived.
Well, it is odd, to be sure. However, I am going to stop short of calling it ugly simply because I am tired of so many cars and concept cars looking so much the same. It’s refreshing, even if it is not totally successful. I would be interested to know the aero CD number, though. It’s very clean.
http://54.64.54.247/wp-content/uploads/kbcphoto_0260.jpg
I, for one, am disappointed we don’t live in a world where Toyota built a grand tourer shooting brake vaguely reminiscent of the last Camry wagon.
http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1995_Camry_Wagon_LE_color.jpg
That last Camry wagon though….I still like that a lot. And they are very cheap because
A) Old car buyers like the unique or fast and it is neither
B) A lot of people don’t know it exists
C) Those in the know are terrified of rust
My BiL has owned two, that he bought used but in good shape. Very capable appliances, and not too much trouble. But when they did need mechanical and electrical repairs and maintenance, it seemed awfully expensive to me.
High repair cost are what a I consider a fact of Japanese car ownership. My Honda puts Mercedes to shame – only with less regularity.
Sadly, I took a quick look at my local listings, and there’s a veritable surplus of that generation Camry (about 40 units, a very respectable showing for any 20+ year old car), but they’re all sedans, and they virtually all have over 300k kms (although most of them are also only a little over $1000, which isn’t entirely unreasonable). That said, 90’s Hondas and Toyotas definitely have demand here.
And honestly, for a 20 year old car, they generally look pretty clean (most aren’t perfect, but I’ve seen worse rust on 5 year old Mazdas).
Mazda’s rust years – for our generation the eternal “could be worse”-excuse.
Camry’s are rare here, and currently only three wagons are offered. Two of them I saw the last time I wanted to tip a friend who was looking for a cheap first car – in May:
http://m.finn.no/car/used/search.html?make=0.813&model=1.813.1386&body_type=4&filters
The Bergen one is priced about double of its worth. I told him we could go and look at it together. Never happened.
The 4500GT had LCD headlamp covers.
I’d have bought one just for that.