Ferrari owner restoring a Toyota Celica GT-Four breaks down exactly how much he’s spent on repairs after a long road
- This UK man is usually a Ferrari enthusiast – he owns three
- But he’s now opted to rebuild a Toyota Celica
- In a video detailing the expenses, he compares the Celica to his Ferraris
Published on Mar 08, 2025 at 5:01 AM (UTC+4)
by Jack Marsh
Last updated on Mar 06, 2025 at 12:10 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
This UK man, a proud Ferrari owner, set his sights on restoring a Toyota Celica GT-Four, and with the project complete, the repairs bill is in.
Usually, Toyota doesn’t get mentioned in the same conversation as the Ferrari steed.
But the Celica models are as close as the Japanese brand ever got to the famed Italian thoroughbreds.
That’s why this Ferrari fan has decided to get under the hood of his Toyota Celica GT-Four and see if its restoration stands up to his trio of Rosso reds.
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UK man restores 1996 Toyota Celica GT-Four
The Toyota Celica is back. After ceasing production in 2006, the Japanese manufacturer recently revealed that classic sports cars are returning.
But UK man James Martin, better known as JayEmm on YouTube, decided not to wait for the relaunch.
Instead, he’s gotten to grips with a 1996 Toyota Celica GT-Four in an upload to his channel.
The YouTuber has owned the Celica for more than three years, while also building up a rack of Ferraris, all of which needed restoring to a certain extent.
However, the car was purchased in a rush and there was a lot of restoration work to do,
Some of which included tricky fixes like the gearbox.

JayEmm made many of the repairs himself but needed to call in more skilled hands when it came to the gearbox and turbo.
A local garage fitted a handful of suspension improvements and a new turbo and helped fix the gears.
That left just the bodywork for the YouTuber to complete before the Toyota Celica GT-Four was ready to rock again.
He also gave the ride some additional tuning to enhance the performance.
But having owned three Ferraris, was the cost worth it?
How did the Toyota fare against his Ferraris?
Well, the Celica was originally bought for $8,000, and the YouTuber poured a further $6,300 into the garage restoration.
Then there was the $700 worth of his own fixes to the paint job.
In addition, there was a second wave of repairs that cost another $4,250.
Altogether, his Toyota Celica GT-Four cost $19,250k.
However, the UK man claimed that the fees were ‘reasonable’ compared to his Ferraris, and the same work would have cost thousands more.

The YouTuber revealed that he ‘fell in love’ with the car and it was equal to anything else that he owned.
“It genuinely is a truly special car,” he said.
Maybe the next project for JayEmm would be to turn his Toyota Celica into a fourth Ferrari, just as another sports car enthusiast did.
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