Overview
Toyota's first-generation Celica, introduced in 1970, was a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports coupe. Ove Andersson persuaded Toyota to let him run a Celica 1600 GT on the 1972 RAC Rally, the last RAC before the manufacturers' World Rally Championship began. Co-driver Geraint Phillips helped him achieve ninth overall and a class victory. The result convinced Toyota to back Andersson's European team.
FIA period paperwork spans several genuinely different configurations: first-generation Celica TA20 K Group 1 form 5418 effective July 1971 at 1,407 cc, with separate later 1,588 cc options; Celica TA23 1600 Group 1 form 5629 at 1,589 cc in 1976; and the second-generation RA40 Group 1 form 5703 at 1,968 cc from May 1978. Those baseline engine sizes and body forms are not one engine or one homologated car.
Toyota Europe dates Andersson Motorsport's foundation to 1973, the later Toyota Team Europe name to 1975, and the European operations' move to Cologne to 1979. It explicitly credits its first TTE WRC outright victory to Hannu Mikkola's Toyota Corolla 1600 at the 1975 1000 Lakes Rally; the original TA22 Celica did not win a world round that year. An evolved Celica later delivered valuable results, including Ove Andersson/Henry Liddon's third in 1979 Portugal and Andersson's fifth in 1979 Ivory Coast. Later Group B TA64 and Group A AWD ST165 exploits belong in separate 1980s histories.