THE nice little "home" girl with the hourglass figure became an angry young street urchin in the latest generation Celica. It's smaller, lighter, tauter and 10 times meaner than sweet number six, sporting a No.1 clipper head shave, sharp eyes and a broken nose. The look is the work of stylists from Toyota's Calty design centre in California. The car is 90mm shorter and 15mm narrower than the model it replaces, even though its wheelbase is 65mm longer. At the front end, a deep channel runs from the small grille aperture up the centre of the bonnet to a (fake) air intake. Long, triangular four-lamp head light clusters with a projector-type low beam and multi-reflector high beam are used.

The roof line is emphasised near each front seat, and bends radically down toward the rear hatch. The wing, standard on both models, and wrap-around "crystalline" tail lights dominate Celica's rear end, though the thick rear pillar and huge spoiler tend to retard rear visibility.