Toyota Sport 800

History

Production of the Sports 800 began in 1965 with chassis code UP15, featuring an 800 cc engine with dual carburetors producing 45 PS, up from the prototype's 28 PS. This engine allowed the lightweight car to reach about 160 km/h on a track. The car entered a market segment already occupied by the Honda S500, Datsun Fairlady, and Daihatsu Compagno. Aerodynamic styling was by Shozo Sato, a designer on loan from Datsun, and Toyota engineer Tatsuo Hasegawa, a former World War II aircraft designer. The Sports 800 was one of the first production cars with a lift-out roof panel, or targa top, which could be stored in the trunk, pre-dating the Porsche Targa. Between 1965 and 1969, approximately 3,131 units were built by Toyota subcontractor Kanto Auto Works. Production figures show 1,235 cars in 1965, 703 in 1966, 538 in 1967, 440 in 1968, and 215 in 1969. About 10% of these vehicles are known to have survived, most in Japan. The vast majority were right-hand drive, but some 300 left-hand drive models were built primarily for the Okinawan market, which drove on the right side of the road. A very limited number of left-hand drive cars were used by Toyota to test drive in the US, but American dealerships decided the 800 would not sell well and did not import it; Toyota let dealers keep the original batch of around 40 Sports 800s in the US. Subtle design differences occurred across years: a change from non-synchro to synchro first gear in 1967, a grille and bumperette change in 1968, and side marker lights in 1969. The basic body design remained unchanged. The air-cooled 790 cc horizontally opposed two-cylinder boxer engine, designated 2U, produced 45 PS at 5,400 rpm from 1965 through 1969. A similar 2U-B was produced from 1966 through 1976, used in the Dyna Coaster Bus as a separate auxiliary engine for the air conditioning unit. In a less tuned form, the 2U was also used in the Publica and MiniAce.