Photos of Toyota 2000GT Assembly Line in the Late 1960s

The 2000GT was very important for Toyota Motor Company because it proved to the world that they could produce sports cars not just grocery getter’s. The design was done by Raymond Loewy of Yamaha, with a body comprised of aluminum and a 2.0L straight six; transformed by Yamaha with double overhead cams to produce 150HP.

First displayed to the public at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1965, the 2000GT was manufactured under contract by Yamaha between 1967 and 1970. A halo car for the automaker, in Japan it was exclusive to Toyota’s Japanese retail sales channel called Toyota Store.

The 2000GT revolutionized the automotive world’s view of Japan, then viewed as a producer of imitative and stodgily practical vehicles. As a sleek, high-performance fastback coupé, it demonstrated its auto makers could produce a sports car to rival the better marques of Europe. Reviewing a pre-production 2000GT in 1967, Road & Track magazine summed up the car as “one of the most exciting and enjoyable cars we’ve driven,” and compared it favorably to the Porsche 911.

Only 337 regular production units of the 2000GT were built, figures comparable to contemporary elite Italian supercars, and according to Toyota 337 were sold. The first prototype was built in August 1965, only 11 months after the project had begun. Taking two years for production vehicles to finally emerge, a total of 233 MF10s, 109 MF10Ls, and nine MF12Ls were built at the Yamaha factory in Iwata, Shizuoka according to Toyota and Yamaha data, starting in May 1967 until August 1970.

In America, a 1968 2000GT listed for about US$7,150 ($63,000 in today dollars), a moderately higher price than competitors like the $5,539 Jaguar E-Type or the $6,790 Porsche 911S, though much lower than exotics like the $19,700 Ferrari 365 GTB/4. Toyota did not sell very many of the cars, which led to its cancellation in 1970, while it did inspire the company to introduce performance oriented “sporty” coupes that followed in the 1970s.

As a “halo car” for Toyota, it is believed that no profit was made on the 2000GT despite its high price. About 60 units reached North America and the others were similarly thinly spread worldwide. Most 2000GTs were painted either Solar Red or Pegasus White, while other colors were offered such as Thunder Silver metallic, Bellatrix Yellow, Atlantis Green, and Twilight Turquoise metallic. Today, the 2000GT is seen as the first seriously collectible Japanese car and its first supercar. Examples of the 2000GT have sold at auction for as much as US$1,200,000 in 2013.