Car Of The Day: March 13, 2012

Today's car of the day comes from Firehawk73's collection and is Johnny Lightning's 1967 Toyota 2000GT.

The Toyota 2000GT is a limited-production, front-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-seat, hardtop coupé grand tourer designed by Toyota in collaboration with Yamaha. First displayed to the public at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1965, the 2000GT was manufactured under contract by Yamaha between 1967 and 1970.

The 2000GT revolutionized the automotive world's view of Japan. The 2000GT demonstrated that Japanese auto manufacturers could produce a sports car to rival those of Europe, in contrast to Japan's image at the time as a producer of imitative and stodgily practical vehicles. 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. Today, the 2000GT is seen as the first seriously collectible Japanese car and the first "Japanese supercar". Examples of the 2000GT have sold at auction for as much as US$375,000.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Toyota 2000GT

The 2000GT made its most famous screen appearance in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, most of which was filmed in Japan. Even though the car was never commercially available as a convertible, two were made specially for the film. However, they did not have roofs, just an upholstered hump at the rear of the cabin to simulate a folded top, and therefore were not really true convertibles. Prior to the decision to make fully roofless cars, building the car as a targa was tried, allegedly due to Sean Connery's height not allowing him to fit into the ultra-low coupé version. This retained the hatchback of the original car, but eliminated the rear side windows. However, when the Targa was completed, Connery's head stuck out of the top to such an extent that it was decided it looked too ridiculous and that roofless versions would have to be made if the car was to be featured in the film. The car was mainly driven by his girlfriend Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) in the film.