The Image Makers
Comparison: Nissan Gazelle v Toyota Celica
Modern Motor Magazine, February 1984
Words: Peter McKay
Photos: Andre Martin
Toyota's Celica has ruled the market for sporty coupes that look great but don't cost the earth. Now Nissan's decided to cash in on the act with its own new sporty coupe - the Gazelle. To counter the challenge Toyota has upgraded the Celica.
ITS PROBABLY a reflection upon the taste of Australian motorists that the Toyota Celica has been the best-selling medium-priced personal car for many years. Two doors and flashy styling maketh the myth of a sporting car without the character to match.
Blessed with striking good looks, the original Celica was immediately successful here although it was no great shakes on the road. Since then, through various model changes, the Celica has continued on its merry way, selling up a storm. It has sold to buyers paying for sex appeal without the sex, or the image sans the substance. Sure, it has always looked like a hundred miles an hour standing still, but it has never failed to perform like a turkey.
The arrival in 1981 of the latest shape an aggressively-styled wedge gave rise to renewed hope. But again the Celica teased us. Like those before it, the Eighties Celica couldn't pull the top off a tinnie, which was probably a good idea considering the car's inherent steering, handling and braking inadequacies (the latter problem being largely related to the car's tres ordinaire damping and spring rates). But in the oddball specialty car sector the Celica kept selling in spite of itself. \
The Gazelle's sleek rounded lines are reminiscent of Toyota's Sprinter.
The winds of change waft a painfully slow path through Japan's leading car producer, but 1983 was a landmark year for the Toyota Motor Company. It was the year that Toyotas almost right across the board began to go and handle. And even the Celica came in for a dose of the magic elixir. Released late in the calendar year, an upgraded Celica with new front-end styling scored the livelier 2.0-litre Super Responsive (Toyota's capital letters, not ours) overhead cam engine currently doing duty in the Corona, and an all-new independent rear suspension. It was a timely update; launched hard on its heels in January was the Nissan Gazelle (in some markets known by the poncy name, Silvia). Nissan makes no bones about its objective with the Gazelle … it is gunning for the small but important personal car market dominated by the Celica.
Available in both liftback and coupe body styles, the Gazelle breaks a lengthy Nissan absence from this area of the market. There was an earlier Silvia model sold in Australia many years ago. A resounding flop, it's a car that Nissan doesn't like to talk about. The predecessor to the new Silvia/Gazelle was considered not up to scratch for Australian conditions. After a hard look at that model, Nissan Australia wisely opted not to bring it here. However Nissan's Product Development Manager Howard Marsden pushed for the current Gazelle for Oz, believing it possessed the ingredients to deliver a knockout punch to the Celica.
Author Peter McKay prepares to get technical, attaching the Correvit to the Gazelle.
Sporty drivers aware of the Silvia/Gazelle's overseas spec conceivably could have been crossing fingers for either the 2.0-litre twin-cam 16-valve version or the even more powerful 1.8-litre turbo. They can feel cheated. The Australian Gazelle is no wild child, though its fuel-injected 2.0-litre lightweight boasts some interesting technical specifications. More on that later ..
The point is that Nissan Australia has gone middle-of-the-road with the Gazelle, virtually duplicating the Toyota's strategy with the Celica. Like the champ, the challenger is no great driver's car. Styled to operate in double-take territory, its performance fails to match its agreeable shape. Ironically, the liftback's rakish rounded-wedge lines are, in profile, reminiscent of Toyota's own Sprinter. Styling is always a matter of personal taste; this writer finds the Gazelle attractive and the Celica's angular lines jarring. Given that this sector of the market appears to base its purchasing around eye appeal, the new Nissan should sell up a storm.
The Celica's clean sharp lines are further enhanced by its covered headlights.
The Gazelle, with its low, slanting bonnet, steeply raked windshield, retractable headlamps, tiny grille area, and single pressing, full height doors, scores a coefficient of drag of 0.34 for the liftback and 0.36 for the coupe. Not exactly an Audi 100 beater in the wind tunnel but acceptable enough.
Of the two Gazelle body shapes, the coupe, priced at $15,100, is more highly specified with standard features such as electric windows, power mirrors and antenna, and cruise control. The liftback, comes in at exactly one grand cheaper. Nissan claims that this is the model to snatch a hefty percentage of the predicted 250 Australian Gazelle sales each month. Both variants have option packs available; for the liftback there's alloy wheels and a manually-operated sunroof, while the coupe can be specified with a power sunroof, air conditioning and power steering.
The Gazelle's interior looks smart and the seats have an incline adjustment; as well there's a lumbar support adjustment for the driver.
The Celica line-up differs in that the coupe is the cheaper, at $13,330; the liftback is more highly specced and is priced lineball with the cheaper of the Gazelles - $14,100. Options include air at $890, power steering at $415, sunroof at $865 and two-tone paint at $380. For metallic paint add another $65.
The Celica's interior could appear a little crass but the comfort and convenience features included mitigate this problem somewhat.
For this story, the Gazelle and Celica came together in Melbourne for a highway run to Ballarat and a confrontation with the stopwatch at an old, disused RAAF landing strip. Both were five-speed manual liftbacks. The only obvious differences in specification … the Toyota was better equipped with optional power steering and air, and standard alloy wheels.
The new-generation overhead cam engine has certainly added some much needed life to the Celica. But why did it not get the peppier fuel-injected version like the Camry, instead of the carburet- tor alternative?
At least the Celica now has reasonable throttle response and sufficient low-down torque to make innercity driving something better than the penal servitude that it's been in the past. However, the engine is still too noisy and harsh to be acceptable in a car of this price. Not as noticeable in the Corona, it could be a problem related to the Celica's sound isolation.
The Gazelle's new CA20E engine is touted as Nissan's most advanced light- weight 2.0-litre, boasting features like two-plugs-per-cylinder with swirl-inducing ports to ensure optimum burning of the incoming fuel mixture, and L-Jetronic injection. With a claimed 78kW at 5200rpm and 160Nm at 3200rpm, it holds a theoretical power and torque advantage over its rival. It's an advantage that barely translates to the road. Under 3000 revs - and the average driver would do much of his city driving around that mark - the new four cylinder engine is perceptibly coarse. Howard Marsden says it is a legacy of the light- weight construction of the engine under high torque demands. At law revs, noise filters through the block; it's a problem not unexpected with low-friction engines fitted with lightweight pistons.
On the credit side, the Gazelle engine revs out beautifully, to redline 6000 and beyond. The freshness of the engine in the test Gazelle - hardly run-in with less. than 2000 kilometres of life - did not encourage no-holds-barred acceleration runs at maximum revs. However, one lone blast broaching the maximum recommended 6000 produced the best result of the session.
Driving-wise the scales lean toward the Celica - but in the looks department, it's all just a matter of taste.
Geared for fuel economy rather than jack-rabbit acceleration, the Gazelle still manages to see off the Celica from a standing start. Time to 100 km/h (the test strip wasn't long enough to do the standing 400 metres) places the Nissan ahead, though there are just a couple of car's lengths in it. On the highway it was obvious that little separated the two in overtaking performance and in ultimate top speed. Zero to 60 km/h times favour the Toyota; perhaps this can be attributed to gearing. The significant difference between the two engines is that the Toyota does its best work low in the rev range, while the Nissan is in its element when operating hard. It's worth nothing too, that this won't be the last time the CA20E engine will power a Nissan in this country; expect it to bob up in one or two new cars in due course . ..
During the acceleration runs, it was clear that the Celica was using one significant advantage - its rear end. That new independently-sprung suspension based on semi-trailing arms and integrated anti-roll bar provided solid grip and a smooth start. On the other hand, the Gazelle's four-link coil-sprung live rear axle was impossible to tame. Varying the revs for the start didn't help. Rear-end judder accompanied every effort to make an express acceleration run. And later, during a brief foray onto a smooth dirt surface, that dreaded axle tramp reappeared. The inability of the rear-end to cope when the kid gloves were off is inexcusable in a car this new, remembering it was launched internationally as recently as September last year. The Celica, let it be said, was quite docile under the same conditions.
Nissan's Lightweight 2.0-litre engine sounded coarse below 3000rpm but ran beautifully at higher revs.
The Celica houses Toyota's new Super Responsive 2.0-lire engine but, unlike the Camry, uses carburetion rather than fuel injection.
Running free on the open road, the latest Celica is the more sure-footed of the two. Not a great handler in traditional sporting car terms, it nevertheless marks a significant step forward in Celica terms. The Gazelle is a floater; neither front nor tail seem to give a desirable level of grip. The test Gazelle, the only one in the country at the time of writing, was not exactly representative of the cars earmarked for the buying public. We were told that the suspension damping and spring rates would be firmer in the production Gazelles. And perhaps the poorer quality Dunlops didn't help matters ..
In theory the zero-scrub front-end geometry, similar to that of the Bluebird, should provide the Gazelle with added directional stability at cruising speeds and under braking. In practice the unassisted rack-and-pinion steering tends to “walk” over undulations in the road surface, giving the impression of requiring a touch more caster. Under braking though, the newcomer is beautifully predictable.
Three successive heavy stomps on the pedal from high speeds revealed no brake fade, nor lock up. The Celica was not quite as reassuring during panic stops, with a tendency to lock the front right. Not badly, mind.
The Gazelle has a touch of quality to its cabin area with tweed-look trim and seating material. The front seats incorporate a fine incline adjustment with lumbar support for the kidneys on the driver's bucket. Adjustable headrests, tilt steering and remote-controlled boot and lockable fuel-lid releases are handy standard features. The Japanese sound system is locked into a special diversity antenna designed to give a constant FM stereo radio signal in poor reception areas. With the metropolis of Melbourne being so pancake flat, there was no means of putting the aerial to the test. Incidentally, the liftback gets four radio/cassette speakers; the ritzier coupe scores two more.
Gazelle instrumentation raises at least one question; how come two warning gauges are located on the passenger's side of the dash, away from the driver's direct line of sight. He too could be interested in knowing how much fuel there is in the tank.
The interior of the Celica stands as a monument to the plastics industry of Japan. On the test car it was hard black stuff. Everywhere. The seating material too looks like it's come straight out of a Macy's catalogue. The trendies will mark that down as a minus. But like the Gazelle, the Celica is loaded with standard comfort items. It all but matches the Nissan right through the regular lazyman's hardware to be found on Japanese cars. Tilt steering … check, remote outside mirror controls check, petrol filler lock … check, AM-FM radio/tape deck … check.
Okay, so a typical specialty sporty coupe buyer, someone who thinks of driving primarily as a method of getting from point to point with minimum thought and effort but someone who wants his car to reflect his self-image much in the same way his clothing or home furnishings do; what's he going to buy now that he has a choice? The Celica or the Gazelle?
The revised Celica is perhaps a better all-round vehicle than the Gazelle. Not faster, nor prettier, but it is marginally more responsive in handling and steering. But that's when it's being driven hard by someone who likes driving hard. For the buyer that Toyota and Nissan have in their corporate sights with the Celica and Gazelle, these marginal differences will make almost no difference at all. And perhaps just the novelty of the new model, the Gazelle, could be enough to swing the sporty coupe buyer's dollar in its favour.