Who knows what Toyotas lurk in the hearts of barns? The Toyotageek knows!
The world is big. Cars are small. You just never know what’s out there, waiting for a Nostalgia Jones to unearth it, and with a length of less than 12 feet and a width under 5, the Toyota Sports 800 occupies, well, a very small portion of the Earth’s 52 million square miles of land. And according to Toyotageek.com’s estimates, only about half of the 3,100 cars built remain, adding even more hay to the stack.
Based on the Toyota Publica platform, the Sports 800 matches an air-cooled 45hp two-cylinder to a helium-esque 1278 pounds, giving the two-seater a top speed of 90mph. Produced from 1965 to 1969, and initially called the Publica Sports, these tiny targa terrors were Toyota’s first sports car and were frequently raced in Japan.
Friends of Toyotageek discovered the proverbial barn find in California (where else?) a while back, but (spoiler alert) sadly, the contact was fleeting.
Source: [toyotageek]
insides. Gunmetal finish wheels, a new engine cover, shift knob, and requisite fender badge further differentiate it from the standard RX-8. Performance-wise, urethane was injected into the rear suspension, front crossmember and rocker panels, working with Bilstein dampers to stiffen up the chassis. In other words, the same Japanese package except for the color of its duds.
