Jonny Milner’s Goodwood Toyota Celica – Click above for high-res image gallery
The Goodwood Festival of Speed is filled with a variety of machines all battling towards a singular goal. Every driver wants to be the cross the finish line in the least amount of time, and this year the winning car was a bit of a surprise. A bright orange Toyota Celica, piloted by rally champion Jonny Milner, blazed up the 1.16-mile Goodwood hillclimb course in 48.07 seconds. That time bested all of the supercars, and even the Formula 1 racers that participated.
How does a Toyota Celica make the run that quickly? By pumping out over 800 horsepower to all four wheels in a car that only weighs 2,318 pounds. The Celica’s stock engine was replaced with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder unit plucked from a WRC Toyota Corolla. That mill was then paired with both a Rotrex supercharger and Garrett turbocharger, and Iif that wasn’t enough, a nitrous oxide system was thrown in for good measure.
Video of the winning run hasn’t made its way to the Internet just yet, but we do have footage of the car throwing down a 48.99-second run. to watch the clip, and then fast forward to 1:48 for Jonny Milner’s run.
Granted, we’re a little weird around here, but we’ve been dreaming of a multi-stage nitrous system since the sixth grade. We saw our friend’s big brother lay down some fat rubber marks all around the cul-de-sac in his primer’d and blown ‘72 El Camino and BAM!, we were sold on the idea that increasing the air part of the air/fuel equation was the smart, righteous thing to do.
Sadly, ain’t all that legal in most places. Mississippi was one of the dozen remaining hold outs until some idiots in a blown car decided to take some police on a high speed chase that ended in the death of Trooper Steve Hood. As such, NOS is now illegal in Mississippi street cars, and is the 39th state to pass such a law.
As far as the specifics go, no one’s sure exactly how the law is written. We know (for instance) that in California you can have a nitrous oxide system in your car and the bottle can even be hooked up, however said bottle must be 100% empty. In other states you’re not allowed to have the bottle screwed in. Still, in others, a NOS system is illegal period.
Our pals at Bangshift.com (who know a whole heck of a lot more about this subject than we do ) are telling Mississippi residents, “Seeing as though this is a law fresh in the minds of law enforcement and represents an emotional event for the Mississippi State Troopers, we’d stow our bottle well away from the mount when headed to the race track.” Sage advice, and much wiser than our hide-a-NOS-system in a fake battery ala suggestion.
