TOYOTA

Sport 800

A total of 3,131 TOYOTA Sports 800 have been produced on earth in Japan between 1965 and 1969. The Toyota Sports 800 was Toyota's first production sports car, and it is one of the great featherweight designs of the 1960s. Developed from the Publica Sports concept shown in 1962 and put into production in 1965 by subcontractor Kanto Auto Works, the Toyota Sports 800 was designed by Tatsuo Hasegawa, a former aeronautical engineer who had worked on wartime aircraft — and it shows. The car weighed just 580 kg, used an aluminium bonnet and boot lid, had a drag coefficient far better than its contemporaries, and featured a removable aluminium roof panel that made it, alongside the Porsche 911 Targa, one of the earliest production targa-topped cars. Power came from an 800 cc air-cooled flat-twin borrowed from the Publica, breathing through twin carburettors to make 45 PS: derisory on paper, but in a car this light and this slippery it was enough for 155 km/h and, famously, better than 30 km/l. That combination of light weight and low drag made the Toyota Sports 800 a giant-killer in Japanese endurance racing, where it beat far more powerful machinery on fuel stops — Yoshio Otsubo's win at the 1965 All-Japan Automobile Club Race is still cited as the moment Toyota learned to go racing. Roughly 3,131 Toyota Sports 800 were built between 1965 and 1969, of which only about 300 were left-hand drive, mostly for Okinawa. It is estimated that only around 10% survive, almost all in Japan. Affectionately nicknamed the 'Yotahachi', the Toyota Sports 800 is the rarest and most historically important Japanese sports car most people have never seen. Upgrades & evolutions during the Toyota Sports 800 production: TOYOTA - Publica Sports (concept, Tokyo Motor Show) : 1962 - 1962 TOYOTA - Sports 800 UP15 (800cc flat-twin, 45 PS) : 1965 - 1969 TOYOTA - Sports 800 left-hand drive (~300 built, Okinawa) : 1965 - 1969 TOYOTA - Sports 800 Gas Turbine Hybrid (1977 prototype) : 1977 - 1977 Average quotation for the Toyota Sports 800: cheapest US$29,000, average US$40,000, most expensive US$89,000 (listings and auction results, 2021-2026). ESTIMATED range. A non-running project sold for US$40,000 on Bring a Trailer; a fully restored left-hand-drive Okinawa car was offered at US$89,000 in Switzerland; Japanese export dealers list cars around US$29,000. Very thin public sales data — treat as indicative.