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2025 Car Mileage with the Best Gas MileageThe Toyota 2000GT was Japan’s First Supercar
At a time when Japanese carmakers were known for small economy cars, the Toyota 2000GT proved Japan was serious about performance as well.
Making Toyota, Toyota
Back in the 1950s, Toyota was a fledging Japanese automaker trying to find its footing. Long before the LFA and Supra, before the Tacoma and the Camry, Toyota had the Crown and Land Cruiser. The latter was a ruggedly built 4×4 in the vein of the classic jeep while the former was Toyota first passenger car, notorious for its lack of reliability. How did Toyota get from the lackluster Crown to the sublime LC 500? By taking on big challenges like building Japan’s first supercar, the Toyota 2000GT.
Origins of the 2000GT
The story of Toyota’s groundbreaking 2000GT starts not with Toyota but with Yamaha. In the late 1950s, Yamaha sought to expand its business from engines and pianos to road cars. To that end, Yamaha began working on a four-cylinder sport coupe prototype, the YX30. While that project was eventually shelved, a collaboration with Nissan reignited the possibility with a new prototype, the A550X in the early 1960s. The release of Nissan’s own Silvia obviated any need for another sport coupe and Yamaha’s plans for a sport coupe were again shelved.
Undeterred, Yamaha approached Toyota, with whom they already worked as a parts supplier. By the middle 1960s, Toyota had begun its expansion into world markets, including the US, with economical commuter cars like the Corona and Corolla. While Toyota’s engineering and reliability had greatly improved over the preceding ten years, the company felt it could use a proper halo car to help stake its claim as a new and significant player in the automotive world. The proposed Yamaha project therefore provided the perfect opportunity for Toyota to make a name for itself on the international stage.
Building Japan’s GT Car
Naturally, when Toyota decided to build itself a proper grand tourer it looked to European cars for inspiration. The design of the 2000GT, low slung with curvaceous lines and long front end, was done by Satoru Nozaki with overt echoes of the Jaguar E-Type. Toyota likewise benchmarked against roadsters and coupes from MG, Porsche, and Lotus, landing on the same X-frame chassis design as the Lotus Elan. The suspension was fully independent with double-wish bones and coil springs and anti-roll bars front and back. The 2000GT was also given rack and pinion steering, a first for Toyota. Four-wheel disc brakes provided superior stopping power.
With an eye toward racing and the help of Yamaha’s engineers, Toyota made sure the 2000GT would have a proper powerplant as well, adapting a 1,988-cc (2.0L) straight-six from the Toyota Crown. The 2.0L featured a 75-mm bore and stroke, a 7,000-rpm redline, and three two-barrel Solex carburetors. Thus equipped, the 2.0L sent 148 horsepower and 148 lb.-ft. of torque to the rear wheels via a five-speed manual and a limited-slip differential (the latter was another first for Toyota or any Japanese car).
Toyota went to similar lengths in the interior of the 2000GT. Rich leather upholstery and finely wrought switch gear were complimented by a choice of walnut or rosewood for the dash and center console trim while the steering wheel and shift knob were done in mahogany all courtesy of Yamaha’s piano department. It was clear Toyota had poured their best efforts into the 2000GT, and the resulting car was like nothing else a Japanese carmaker had yet built.
The 2000GT in the Wild
The Toyota 2000GT debuted at the Tokyo Auto Show in 1965 but took another two years to reach its production release. In the meanwhile, to showcase the car’s capabilities, Toyota took a prototype 2000GT to the Yatabe Circuit in ’66 where it set 13 speed and endurance records in a 72-hour period. Toyota fielded the 2000GT in major national races netting a third-place finish at the 1966 Japan Grand Prix and wins in ’67 at the Fuji 1000 and 24 Hours of Fuji.
Toyota also brought the 2000GT to the SCCA 1968 season in the US with none other than Carroll Shelby helming the efforts. Despite four race wins, Toyota’s team finished fourth for the season. Though respectable for a first-time effort Toyota pulled the 2000GT from SCCA competition the following year.
The 2000GT’s most memorable moment came not on the racetrack but on the silver screen when it featured prominently in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Because of Sean Connery’s stature, production chopped the roof off the two cars used for filming, the only convertible version of the 2000GT ever to exist. Even with that accommodation, it is not Connery but his female counterpart Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) who did the driving in the movie.
Legacy of the Toyota 2000GT
The Toyota 2000GT was well reviewed at the time of its release, praised for its sophisticated handling and fetching design. With a sticker price of just under $7,000 USD, the 2000GT was costlier than either the Jaguar E-Type or the Porsche 911S, its most direct competition. Like the Lexus LFA of many years later, Toyota’s first halo car was not a commercial success, costing more to build than it sold for and moving small numbers overall with a scant 337 units built. And yet, also like the LFA, the 2000GT burnished the Toyota brand, demonstrating to the world the company’s capabilities, and pushed the company’s engineering to another level.
Today, the Toyota 2000GT is the most collectable of Japanese classic cars. An auction in 2022 for one of the three Toyota 2000GT modified and raced in SCCA by the Shelby team sold for $2.5 million. That price marked yet another first for the 2000GT as it is now also the first Japanese car to sell for over $2 million.
