With all the talk and reveals of super cars in the news today, does anyone know what Toyota’s first super roll out was? We take you back to the Tokyo Motor Show in 1965 to pull the concept canvas off the Toyota 2000 GT.

The car officially went into production in 1967.

1967 Toyota 2000GT

The car was built to show that the Japanese were capable of producing sports car that could very much rival those created in Europe. It also changed the view of car enthusiasts in Japan, as well as the view of those car aficionados who did not believe in the performance of Japanese vehicles during that era.

From the photo you can see that the car appeared to look like the Jaguar E-Type, but Toyota insisted that it was their own creation. Only 351 of these 2000GT’s were built during the production run of 1967 – 1970.

2000GT

Jaguar 1965 E-Type

As an interesting aside, the car appeared in the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice.” Due to Sean Connery’s height, he was not able to fit into the car. They still thought the car was cool, so to rectify the problem they did a little chopping and turned the car into a convertible. Oh those Hollywood types!

From the fabulous 60’s let’s rocket ahead to 2007 and visit the Sure Design studio in Spain where they have this goodie is in their garage.

Sure Design’s modern interpretation of the 2000GT is a sharply styled two-door coupe called the 2000SR . And in a nod to Toyota’s impressive record in alternative technology, SR has two sources of power. For the track, it uses a 600bhp 3.5-litre V6 turbocharged engine that runs on bio ethanol. In this state, the car is rear-wheel drive for optimum hand­ling. However, on public roads, a second, front-mounted electric motor is brought into play. This is capable of driving the front wheels independently, and has been des­igned to be emissions free.

Looks like a future car to replace the Toyota MR2 Spyder.