The Empire Hill Climb Revival might not be the longest hilll climb in the world–in fact, it’s probably one of the shortest–but in the event’s fourth year since rebooting the classic Michigan hill climb, it has started to draw some impressive entries. This year found a classic Lola 1971 Indy car and a menacing-looking track day missile called the Lovefab Enviate Hypercar. But the hill climb also drew Mikko Kataja’s 1979 Toyota Starlet, a Finnish car that has featured regularly in European hill climbs and time attacks. And Kataja went out and obliterated the Empire Hill Climb record in the Starlet.
The bantamweight Starlet doesn’t have a pile of horsepower, but the early Starlets were rear-wheel drive to give good balance to what little weight the Toyota carries. Under the hood is a 1.6-liter 4AGE engine (the same one used in first-generation MR2s and some Corollas) that spins happily to more than 8,000 RPM and makes around 200 horsepower. With a curb weight probably under a ton, that’s enough engine to send Kataja up the short Hill Climb in a record 21.222 seconds.
Kataja is making a whirlwind tour of the United States while he has his Starlet here from Finland. In June, he ran the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, where he finished the climb in 11:42. That was far from leading the class, but for a low-horsepower car, that’s a pretty solid time. We don’t know where Kataja is headed next, but we hope he sticks around for a while and whoops some more butt with his high-revving Toyota.
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