Now here’s a car you definitely won’t see at your local used car lot. A fully restored example of Toyota’s iconic 2000GT is currently up for sale in Japan by a Tokyo-based dealer. This classic GT is one out of some 351 production models cars built between 1967 and 1970.
The 2000GT is widely considered to be Japan’s first proper supercar and the forefather of high-end sports cars from the Land of the Rising Sun such as the modern day Lexus LFA.
The Japanese rear-wheel drive sports car made its world debut at the 1965 Tokyo Motor Show, however, it took Toyota two more years to begin delivering the first examples to buyers.
There’s a debate on who’s responsible for the styling of the 2000GT as some insist that Toyota refined the original design by Yamaha and German-American designer Albrecht Goertz, the creator of the BMW 507, but most seem to concur that Toyota designer Satoru Nozaki should be the one credited for the car’s styling.
Then again, there are those that don’t care about the debate claiming that whoever designed the car was greatly influenced by Jaguar’s legendary E-Type Coupe.
Styling aside, the 2000GT featured an aluminum body while power was provided by a 2.0-liter twin-cam straight-six sourced from the Toyota Crown but heavily modified by Yamaha, which drove the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission.
This particular 2000GT is 1970 model that underwent a painstaking and detailed restoration that is said to have lasted six years. The dealer said that the 2000GT had clocked 90,000 km (about 56,000 miles) before the restoration started in 2003. No word on pricing but you know the saying…
Source: Wintel
