Ryan Tuerck took a front-wheel-drive 1994 Celica GT — a car nobody wanted, stripped to a corroded shell — and turned it into a 600-horsepower all-wheel-drive rally weapon powered by the GR Corolla’s three-cylinder engine. Then he drove it to second place in its very first competition.
The build, nicknamed the GT411, debuted at the FAT Ice Race in Big Sky, Montana, where it ran against a field Tuerck himself described as staggering. A podium finish on a fresh car with no shakedown history is the kind of result that makes you pay attention.
Tuerck is the guy who once crammed a Ferrari 458 V8 into a Toyota GT86, so restraint has never been his thing. But this project is more thoughtful than a party trick. He wanted to channel the spirit of the Celica GT-Four that terrorized WRC stages in the early 1990s — a car Toyota eventually got banned from competition in 1995 for running illegal turbo inlet restrictors.
The GT411 carries that legacy, for better and worse, right in its DNA.
The starting point was a USDM Celica GT, the kind of sixth-generation four-eye that came exclusively with front-wheel drive in the States. That meant the conversion wasn’t a bolt-in affair. Tuerck and Teixeira Fabrication reworked the floorpan, fabricated a tubular rear subframe, and installed a proper AWD drivetrain with Wavetrac differentials and a Holinger sequential gearbox.
A full roll cage and carbon fiber body panels completed the transformation from junkyard relic to purpose-built rally car.
The heart of it is Toyota’s G16E — the 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder from the GR Corolla. In factory trim, that engine makes 300 horsepower, which is already impressive for a three-pot. Tuerck’s version makes 500 on low boost and 600 with everything dialed up, courtesy of a Garrett G30-770 turbocharger, forged internals from Nitto Performance Engineering, Kelford Stage 2 cams, Supertech valvetrain components, and a custom exhaust header.
Six hundred horsepower from 1.6 liters and three cylinders. Let that settle for a moment.
Tuerck owns an actual JDM GT-Four but didn’t want to hack it up. Smart move. Those cars are appreciating fast and are increasingly difficult to find in clean condition. Building the GT411 from a throwaway shell let him go as far as the engineering would allow without sacrificing a collector piece.
The timing feels deliberate. Toyota has been dropping teasers about a possible return of the Celica nameplate, and the WRC connection is hard to ignore. Whether or not those hints turn into a production car, Tuerck’s build is a reminder that the Celica’s rally heritage still resonates — and that Toyota’s modern GR hardware is wildly capable when the safety nets come off.
A year of fabrication. A rusty shell nobody else would have touched. A three-cylinder engine doubled past its factory output. And a second-place finish on ice the first time the car turned a competitive wheel.
The GT411 isn’t just a YouTube build. It’s a proof of concept for what the GR Corolla’s architecture can do when someone stops worrying about the warranty.
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