1967 Toyota 2000GT: Worlds Most Expensive Asian Car Sold For $1.2M

The 1967-Toyota 2000-GT

For those in the know, the 1967-Toyota2000-GT is a much appreciated car for its style, performance and craftsmanship, however it has always been over-shadowed in the auto collectors world for the more prestigious and more recognized European autos, but finally the Toyota-2000-GT is getting its due after setting a new-record after being sold by RM-Auctions for $1.2million, thus making it the new-record-holder for the most-expensive Asian-car ever to be sold. The car is from Don Davis collection in Fort-Worth, Texas.

Normally the prices of a Toyota 2000GT ranged between $7230 new back in 1967, and approximately $50,000 that is, in today’s dollars, this is to mean the 2000GT has never been and never was a cheap car, it has always been a bit more expensive than its rather common peers like, Porsche-911, sold for about $6180, and Jaguar E Type, sold for $5549.

The Toyota 2000GT made-its-debut at the 1965-Tokyo Motor-Show, however it took the 2000GT 2 years before going on sale. Raymond-Loewy of the Yamaha Company is responsible for the 2000GT design. The Toyota 2000GT design was initially intended for the Nissan company but they chose not to use it. That design was then proposed to the Toyota company who accepted it.

Design

Inspired to make or design a sports-car which could rival the sports cars in Europe, the Japanese-designers unveiled Toyota-2000-GT at the -Tokyo-Motor-Show back in 1965 and it later went on-sale during in the year1967. The 2000GTs were produced in Tokyo-Japan and the production vehicles/cars were designed and built between the years 1967 – 1970, in very limited-numbers.

The 2000-GT is commonly considered as the 1st Japanese Supercar since it revolutionized and changed the way the Japanese-car manufacturers were viewed in-regards to their production skills.By producing this car, the Toyota company proved to the whole world that the Japanese had a quite lucrative-future in the auto world.

Back in the 1960′s Japan was commonly known for producing family-cars or economy-sedans that were modeled after the English and the French versions and most-definitely not for GT or sports cars. After post-war-period, the Italians and the Germans that were known to design the most exotic GT and sports cars, and the British too were in the sports-car market.That’s why it was a surprise when the Toyota 2000-GT was designed and produced by the most-conservative of Japanese-Auto manufacturers.

During 20000GT’s rather short production-lifespan only 337 cars were produced and some of the final-versions of the vehicle featured air conditioning.Today many auto collectors consider the Toyota-2000-GT as the 1st highly-collectable Japanese/Asian car.

The Toyota-2000-GT is visually similar to Jaguar E Type. It’s light is provided by the driving lamps and the pop up lights and to protect the exposed-driving lamps, there is a Plexiglas-cover installed.Its’ body comprises of aluminum and a six cylinder-engine which is located under the car’s hood. It is extremely low at just 45.7 inches (that is, 116 cm) -roof, and the bodywork is smoothly-flowing and executed-in-aluminum. It has a 2,329 mm wheel-base and about 4,176 mm length.The carburetion is through a 3, 2-barrel Solex-40 PHH-units. 9 special MF 12 models which were built with the 2.3 Litre 2M-engine. The vehicle was available with 3 different final-drives.

Appearances:

2 Toyota 2000GTs were remodeled into convertibles and were featured in 007-James-Bond movie, You-Only-Live-Twice, also the Toyota 2000GT was featured in the TV show “The-Ugliest-Girl-in-Town” and in “Hawaii-5″.

Source: Bornrich