Hehe yeah, those Eclipse's and the Talon's were hot shit back then.
The hypothesis I've heard is that at that time Toyota was so encompassed by their image of being a family car, an A to B car, the "refrigerator" of the auto industry, it just worked, no frills. A "Toy-mota" and such. People just ignored their attempt of putting out a sports car, they weren't taken seriously at all. The image of the Toyota brand at the time did in the Celica All Trac.
I think the Supra took care of that problem. <---- CI's Understatement of the Year.