Racing successes, world records, Bond car: A Toyota 2000 GT is rare and expensive. One copy has now been sold at bringatrailer.com. It wasn't enough for the record price.
Toyota only built the 2000 GT 351 times in three years. Only 109 of them have the steering wheel on the left. One of these rare left-hand drive vehicles was now up for sale in the USA: Beverly Hills, California dealer Silverarrowcars offered a white 2000 GT on the auction site bringatrailer.com Prizes of one million euros or more. This makes it worth a similar amount to a Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing and one of the most expensive Japanese classics. In this case, the bids did not climb that high: the auction ended with a maximum bid of 850,000 US dollars, which is the equivalent of around 734,000 euros.
Six-in-line with 152 hp
Toyota developed the sports car together with Yamaha; the 2000 GT was also built in the Yamaha factory in Hamamatsu. A double victory in the Suzuka 1,000 km race in 1966 and numerous records prove the speed and reliability of the car.
The sports car is powered by a light-alloy six-cylinder in-line engine with a displacement of two liters. With three twin carburettors, the engine achieves 152 hp at 6,600 rpm. Power is transmitted to the rear axle, which is suspended on triangular wishbones, via a five-speed manual gearbox. The top speed is 220 km/h and the sprint from zero to 100 km/h takes less than ten seconds. A curious side note: the pop-up headlights were not planned at first, but then became necessary due to the minimum height of the headlights prescribed in the USA. Toyota converted two of them into convertibles, which can be seen as getaway vehicles in the 1967 Bond film "You Only Live Twice".
Odometer reading 19,000 km
According to the seller, the five-digit odometer of that white 2000 GT from bringatrailer.com is around 12,000. The coupe was originally painted red and was in a Japanese museum before coming to the US in 2013. At that time, the current owner bought it via bringatrailer.com. At the time, the car was described as restored and accident-free.
The original tool, the most recent invoices and a "clean Montana title", i.e. an unencumbered registration in Montana, are part of it. Apart from some minor maintenance work that was done between 2015 and documented by invoices, nothing can be found out about the history of the coupe.
Conclusion
The flat body with the long snout and the high-revving in-line six-cylinder make the 2000 GT a desirable car. Since it's also rare, has won races and world records, and - as a convertible conversion - was a Bond getaway vehicle, there are quite a few requirements for high prices. The non-original paint may have pushed the price down a bit.
