Toyota 2000GT

With only 337 Toyota 2000GTs (Nisen GT in Japanese) produced between 1967 and 1970, you'd be doing fairly well to be able to lay claim to having driven what is arguably Japan's first supercar . However, with a run of only two vehicles produced for the Bond film You Only Live Twice, fewer still can claim to have sampled the wind in the hair delights of the convertible version. One man who has however is eminent Japanese motoring journalist Shigeharu Kumakura, and he was kind enough to make a couple of videos recording the experience.

Although Kumakura was seemingly only allowed to stretch the cars legs within the confines of the Toyota Museum's grounds, the resulting videos are enough to provide us mere mortals with a feel of what it might be like to pilot such a rare beauty. For those who can't understand a word of Japanese, listen out for some familiar terms such as 'double overhead camshaft'. If that's too much like hard work, there's plenty of aural pleasure to be found in the noise emanating from the 2000GT's twin-cam inline-six - originally found in the Crown saloon but modified heavily by Yamaha taking power up to 150hp.

A couple of fascinating facts mentioned in the video:

• As with the 2000GT's engine, the interior was also influenced by the hand of Yamaha, with craftsmen from the company's musical instrument division creating the rosewood trim.
• In 1966, a pre-production vehicle spent four days lapping the high-speed bowl at the Japanese Vehicle Research Facility in Ibaraki, covering 15,000km at an average speed in excess of 200km/h, even continuing through inclement weather conditions as a typhoon hit the track.
• When new, you could have bought four Toyota Corollas for the price of a single 2000GT.