Rumors have been fly­ing about a new per­for­mance ori­ented Toy­ota sports car hit­ting the per­for­mance scene for a con­sid­er­able time now, from an AE86 revival to a new Supra, but per­haps no one expected news that these shad­owy rumors would coa­lesce into the for­got­ten Cel­ica GT-​​4.

The last model Cel­ica. Will we see styling cues from this?

But per­haps even more sur­pris­ing is the rumor that the car will be engi­neered to a large degree by Sub­aru. In Novem­ber Toy­ota con­firmed rumours of a new sports car and Cel­ica replace­ment, with the sports car being a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sub­aru and Toy­ota, and now it seems the car is the per­for­mance model of the Cel­ica line. How­ever, the new car will not come with a Toy­ota bred turbo four in the tra­di­tion of the (some­what) under­pow­ered motor of the old model — instead it’s going to be car­ry­ing a Sub­aru Boxer turbo, most recently seen in the all grown up Sub­aru Impreza WRX STi.

The new model is said to come in two dis­tinct per­for­mance vari­ants. First, the base ‘GT’, pack­ing a front engined, RWD dri­ve­train and nat­u­rally aspi­rated 2.0L 4 cylin­der Boxer (most likely from the Impreza RX), designed to slide in under the $20,000 bracket. Sec­ondly the full fat GT-​​4, which car­ries the new JDM STi’s 224KW (300HP) Boxer turbo and AWD sys­tem stan­dard, with Motor Trend claim­ing the engine will be closer to the cars fire­wall in order to facil­i­tate the instal­la­tion of in-​​wheel elec­tric motors to help with traction.

The GT and GT-​​4 will be built in in coupe and three-​​door hatch vari­ants, but no five door vari­ants because of Toy­ota and Sub­aru not want­ing to com­pete in the Impreza’s arena, which is rather tongue in cheek con­sid­er­ing this new car will inevitably be seen as either a Impreza in Toy­ota cloth­ing, or as direct com­pe­ti­tion by tuners. This begs the ques­tion then; will the new GT-​​4 be a real con­tender in the hotly con­tested price for per­for­mance bracket? Will the Toy­ota be lighter, faster, and more capa­ble than the new STi? Would Sub­aru shoot them­selves in the foot, and does it mat­ter con­sid­er­ing Toyota’s widen­ing stake in Sub­aru?

Does this mean Sub­aru will become more and more the per­for­mance arm of Toy­ota? Time will tell, but we cer­tainly hope not.

Accord­ing to Pres­tige Motor­sport, the new R35 GT-​​R can now be imported legally under SEVS!

How­ever, com­pli­ance is as far as 12 months away (2009), and prices are expected to exceed AU$100,000 for the new Nis­san super­car. Regard­less, this is a big fist in the eye of Nis­san Aus­tralia, as enthu­si­asts will now be able to grab the new car directly from the JDM with­out Nis­san Australia’s interference!

[Source: Pres­tige Motor­sport]

Merry Xmas and Happy Hol­i­days to all IJ read­ers and all lovers of beau­ti­ful cars from those great folks in Japan!

We wish you and yours all the best in this sea­son. Remem­ber to stay safe and be respon­si­ble on the roads.

We leave you now with a video of this year’s great­est vehi­cle release. The Nis­san GT-​​R. Here’s to a great 2008! We have a few very spe­cial good­ies on the

Wie auch Black­jack erlaubt Caribean Poker den Spiel­ern gegen den Dealer zu online casino anstelle gegen andere Spieler.
way in the new year so hang tight!

It turns out that Mit­subishi Europe has qui­etly released details on the Ral­liart Lancer.

Mit­subishi doesn�t state whether the Ral­liart will be based on the 4door Lancer or the upcom­ing 5door hatch, how­ever Carscoop states the USDM Ral­liart will be based on 4 door lancer sedan, whereas Europe will get the 5 door hatch. Since Aus­tralia clas­si­cally gets the clos­est equiv­a­lent on the JDM, we can expect to see the 4 door on our roads.

The Ral­liart is expected to run a detuned 177KW, 240PS ver­sion of the EVO X 2.0L, dual valve VVT turbo 4 cylin­der. Cou­pled to this is the mag­nif­i­cent 6-​​speed Twin Clutch SST trans­mis­sion, and AWD with Active Cen­tre Dif­fer­en­tial and Active Yaw Control.

The final form of the Ral­liart in Aus­tralia is unknown, but given the com­pe­ti­tion between Sub­aru and Mit­subishi in this seg­ment we can expect the Ral­liart to slot firmly into posi­tion against the stan­dard Sub­aru Impreza WRX — leav­ing the Evo X to tackle the WRX STi.

Being some­what given to fan­tasy here at IJ, we’d love to see that Sport­back con­cept repro­duced in full for the hatch­back. Given the stan­dard new Lancer is being hailed as a run­away suc­cess for Mitsu, a return of the Ral­liart Lancer is sure to be noth­ing less than a added cream in Mitsu’s prof­its in an age of high demand for fast, small, fuel effi­cient cars.

[Source: Carscoop]

 

Ohh you’re in for a treat. Check out this great video of the GT-​​R in production.

And I bet you thought the GT-​​R was made by lit­tle ASIMO style robots.