Sometimes life throws you lemons. Or, perhaps, an entire lemon tree aimed squarely at your Toyota 2000GT. Other times, the car nut friend you meet in college turns out to be Akio Toyoda.
To be clear, Javier Quirós‘s family was already knee-deep in Toyotas before the two met. Quirós’ father imported two FJ25 Land Cruisers for his Costa Rica banana plantation and before you know it, had become the world’s fourth-oldest Toyota importer, in charge of all the ToMoCo products sold in the region. Family fortunes grew and Javier eventually acquired his dream car, a 1967 Toyota 2000GT. Now he’s restoring it to what he believes is “the most original 2000GT in the world.”
This is the story of how Javier Quirós came to own his 2000GT, serial number 10128 and originally sold in Mozambique. Over the years he’s remained friends with Akio Toyoda, earning a seat alongside the Toyota Motor Company president in his 24 Hours of Nürburgring Lexus LFA. Quirós owns his own LFA as well, the only one with fog lights specially designed by TOM’S as an homage to the endurance racer. It’s red, like the rest of Javier Quirós’ collection of Toyota sports cars.
After many years with the 2000GT, Quirós thinks it’s time to pass it on to the next custodian. But before releasing it, he conducted what he calls the most thorough restoration in the world, with every last hose, clamp or screw researched and vetted as original. Quirós hopes to let it find its new home at the Monterey Historics this year, which already has a hakosuka GT-R, Cosmo Sport, and another 2000GT on the lot list. UPDATE: This 2000GT has been consigned to RM Auctions.
You can read more about Quirós and his 2000GT from our friends at Kaizen Factor, in Part 01 and Part 02.
I’m surprised you guy’s missed another 2000gt sale. A nice red example recently sold in Monaco by RM Auction s for 728,000 Euro (1.074M Australian)
I hadn’t heard. Thanks for the tip!
You missed out on another bidding opportunity did you ? lol
These cars definitely look better in red.
http://rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=1066139
They do indeed! Here’s another, shot I might say, rather tastefully too:
http://motoringconbrio.com/2013/06/28/guest-contributor-skorj-on-the-toyota-2000gt-mf/
I knew there was a very good chance I’d price myself out of cars like this when founding JNC, but I still don’t regret the decision. I almost took out a tremendously irresponsible loan to get a yellow one in 1999… for $150,000.
wha……!
You mean JNC could’ve had its own superstar of JNCs…in Bellatrix Yellow no less? My head just exploded.
Haha, well, it would have been so irresponsible that I might very well still be living out of it right now, and thus would not have the internets necessary to start JNC 🙂
RM Auctions
http://rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=1068237
Two 2000GTs in one weekend – I remember when the market could absorb one or two 2000GT sales a year. The market is accelerating for sure.
sure is nice to have money
Restoring “the most original 2000GT in the world.” What a idiot.
Initially I thought so too, as – restoring it to what he believes is “the most original 2000GT in the world’ – is of course a total contradiction. However reading both the original source, and the commentary it is clear what he means to say is simply ‘the most original restoration in the world’. Whereby they are using as many original parts as possible to source, and limiting the use of modern or repro bits accordingly. An entirely legit objective…
In the photographs though, this Honda driver can clearly see some attributes nothing like ‘original’ for an MF10 though. But, that’s another story… Neko.
Yeah, “totally original” and “restored to totally original spec” is two thoroughly different things.
Sorry to be the nagging old man, but I just wish people could just get a grasp of this.
Of course it still looks like it’ll be a truly awesome 2000GT… 😉