1994 Toyota Celica Track Car ‘Shrek’

Another car we part-own with some buddies is a real beast. Also Japanese but this time a modified ’94 Toyota Celica GT track car. The noise it makes is incredible! It’s as quiet as a mouse when cruising along but when the revs climb the engine truly screams and you find yourself not wanting to let your foot off the floor even though the next corner approaches at terrifying speed!

When bought, the car had been stripped of any unnecessary weight and track prepped with race suspension, EBC brakes, forced induction, bucket seats, a Momo steering wheel, harnesses and a cool paint job.

Even though the car had been used on track by the previous owner it didn’t have a roll cage. The plan is to take this car onto the track and so the first thing we did was to add a top quality OMP roll cage, painted to match the wheels!

We added a Rising Sun sticker to the roof and painted the wing mirrors to match the wheels. The green wing mirrors looked rather like green ears and reminded us of the Disney character Shrek!! Needless to say the name has stuck!

The list of jobs to do on Shrek is not that long but a few little improvements would make a good car into a really great car. The fibreglass side skirts have been damaged on high curbs and so we need to repair those. Also to offset the added weight of the cage we’re going to lighten the bonnet which is extremely heavy. We considered making a fibreglass version but have decided instead to remove the strengthening braces under the bonnet and leave just the bonnet skin. This will be extremely light but also very flimsy and so it will need additional catches to hold it down.

We may also replace some of the glass with perspex and give the car a brand new paint job to make it look as fantastic as it drives.

Recently the speedometer has stopped working and so we got Shrek up on the ramp to find out why.

This model has an electronic link between gearbox and gauge with a sensor at the gearbox end. This is tricky to remove but once out it was obvious it was extremely gunked up. Raj and Sarah gave it a good clean inside and out but unfortunately once linked up again it made no difference. It’s quite likely this is the original unit and therefore it’s no surprise if it’s died after so many years. So, the next step is to replace it. At around £25 it’s worth the punt.

Keep an eye on this page to see how we get on!