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27/08/2010, 01:05
By MURRAY HUBBARD
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On the eve of Toyota ... oops, Lexus bringing the Lexus LFA supercar to market it was interesting to spot Toyota's first production sports car – the Toyota Sports 800 – at the recent RACQ MotorFest in Brisbane. These are a rarity outside Japan.
This is a 1966 model which shows how at some stage Toyota actually put form ahead of function. It's a stunning little car that grabbed the attention of more than a few enthusiasts at the Brisbane show, many seeing a Sports 800 for the first time. Perhaps the greatest surprise hides under the bonnet: an 800 cc flat two (boxer) style engine with dual carburettors perched on top. The flat two would have been developed to enable the bonnet line to be kept as low as possible.
This car is owned by Graham Babcock, a member of Brisbane's Classic Japanese Car Club. The Toyota Sports 800 has an interesting history that starts around 1960 when Toyota developed a car called the Toyota Publica Sports, which was shown at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1962. It gained the `Publica' name as the powertrain was borrowed from the production model sedan, the Toyota Publica 700. It took until 1965 for the car to go into production in which time the engine was taken out to 800 cc and the dual carburettors were fitted. This upped power from 21 kW to 34 kW. Just to put that in context the new Lexus LFA has 412 kW. The LFA gets to 160 km/h in 7.8 seconds while 160 km/h was the Toyota Sports 800's top speed.
While the performance figures now seem conservative, the Sports 800 weighed just 580 kg and in city use was able to give economy of 45 miles to the gallon, or around 5.0 litres/100 km. Even by today's standards thats pretty frugal.
The Sports 800, like our featured car, had a liftout roof, which you may be able to see under the rear of the car. This actually pre-dates the Porsche Targa. It was a system used with great effect and success in Nissan's loungeroom on wheels, 280ZX sports. The Nissan connection to the Toyota Sports 800 is also worth noting. The car's aerodynamic lines came from the pen of Nissan's Shozo Sato, who was on loan from Nissan to Toyota at the time. Go figure. Unlike the 280 ZX which used heavy and expensive glass panels, the Toyota Sports 800 used lightweight aluminium for the Targa roof.
No doubt the Toyota engineer on the project, Tatsuo Hasegawa had something to do with that. Hasegawa was a WW2 aircraft designer and knew all about the benefits of aluminium construction and applied that knowledge to the Sports 800. With just 34 kW of power on tap the body had to be light if the car was to have both economy and track speed and as a result many of the body panels are aluminium.
Toyota manufactured just 3131 Sports 800 cars between 1965 and 1969, mostly in right hand drive for the domestic Japanese market, but also 300 left hand drive for the market in Japanese Okinawa, which, due to US occupation and influence, drove on the opposite side of the track. Over the four year production period the Sports 800 evolved slightly,but with no major changes to the streamlined body shape. In 1967 the transmission gained synchro on first gear, slight changes to grille and bumper in 1968 and side lights in 1969.
The air-cooled boxer engine reminds us of the VW concept used the first Beetle and of the Kombi, the difference being that at least the Sports 800 was mounted at the front, although driving the rear wheels, but allowing cool air straight through the horizontal grille slats. Another aspect of the Sports 800 cannot be overlooked. Toyota's first attempt at a hybrid used the Sports 800 body as the concept shell. Development of this single gas turbine hybrid vehicle started in 1965 and had it's debut at the 1977 TokyoMotor Show. As we now know Toyota has a major commitment to hybrid technology which it pioneered in production terms with the popular Prius.
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