Toyota, based on 1st quarter sales, is now the world's largest automaker, having surpassed friendly giant GM. You'd think a car company that big would make few mistakes but I submit that Toyota goofed when it dropped the Celica. Correction: Toyota goofed when it upgraded the affordable, comfortable, Celica into something that looked like a baby Lamborghini with a cramped cockpit and a high price tag. I remember that car, having been at the media launch in Quebec and later testing it with Jody Ness in a "she said, he said" for a woman's magazine. It handled well enough that I made the lady carsick on a winding road. Sorry, Jody, wherever you are.

Years earlier my son's godfather Leonard Vis owned a Celica similar to the 1975 model in the catalog photo. He loved it, swore his yellow beauty was the best, most reliable, most fun car ever created. Maybe it was, though I did get tired of Len's endless boasting. In 1980 I briefly owned a Celica hatchback that a musician friend was keen to sell. All I remember of that car was taking it through a carwash with the sunroof open... getting drenched before I could close the roof. (Yes, even automobile journalists can be idiots.) Toyota discontinued the Celica in North America at the end of 2005, possibly due to competition from its own lower-priced Scion tC. The tC became what the Celica should have been.

Traditionalists may not agree that the Celica has value as a collectible but younger folks who grew up with Japanese cars seem to care little about tradition, as evidenced by the growing number of gatherings devoted to Japanese cars. When the Toyota Owners and Restorers Club in Long Beach, Calif., started Toyotafest a dozen years ago it was a 10-car meet. Terry Yamaguchi, the club's director for special events, expects more than 300 Toyotas at this year's Toyotafest on May 12, to be held next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Entrants will include 1957 to 2007 Toyotas, along with all stock racing cars plus Scion and Lexus.

Take note of the setting in which the catalogue car was photographed. Very European. Toyota was already making a statement.