Seen at the Monterey Historics this weekend...

[conedodger]

This car is significant to Z owners because?

I remember hearing speculation on the relationship...

[Carl Beck]

Because:

That is one of the Toyota 2000GT's that Shelby America prepared and raced with Toyota Sponsorship.

Peter Brock and BRE had a signed contract with Toyota for the competition development of the Toyota 2000GT in the USA. Toyota was supposed to ship cars, spare parts and money to BRE for competition in the US.

When Mr. Shelby heard about it - He flew to Japan, meet with some officials at Toyota and told them that Peter Brock worked for him before - and since Shelby was a Toyota Distributor at the time - the cars should come to him. Of course at the time Shelby had the Cobra success fame going for his name as well.

Shelby got the cars and BRE was left without a client....

Mr. Brock called a friend at Hino Motors in Japan, for whom BRE was designing and campaigning a race car in the US already. Mr Brock explained the Toyota situation to his friend - who happened to have gone to college with the President of Nissan Motors Ltd.

One friend called another - and Nissan Motors Ltd. sent BRE some roadsters to campaign, along with the contracts and money. When BRE successfully campaigned the roadsters - beating all comers.. Mr. Brock was finally allowed to meet Mr. K. (having been blocked by the people in the Competition Dept. at Nissan Motors in USA prior to that).

Mr. K then put BRE under contract to campaign the Datsun's for Nissan Motors USA's West Coast Division and the BRE DATSUN's were born...

So if Shelby hadn't taken the Toyota contract away from BRE - we might all be driving Toyota's today.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[Mike B]

So if Shelby hadn't taken the Toyota contract away from BRE - we might all be driving Toyota's today.

Well, if it was a Toyota 2000GT I was driving I might be able to live with that .

-Mike

[sblake01]

I've sat in a couple of those. Nice cars but too small for me.

[Carl Beck]

Well, if it was a Toyota 2000GT I was driving I might be able to live with that .

-Mike

Yes - but you would never have lived as well.

Carl

[conedodger]

I knew I could count on Carl! That is exactly right. It was a great weekend...

[26th-Z]

The irony here is that the Toyota is worth far more than any Z.

[bigoak]

Supply and demand.

The 2000GT was basically a limited production concept car. Only 337/351 (a couple of #'s are floating around) 2000GT's were ever built (they were actually built by Yamaha for Toyota). Production ran from 1967-1970 and list price was $6,800. Way higher than most competitors (911's, Z's at the end of the run).

Edited September 1, 2008 by bigoak