Automotive Shotime: May 24 — Toyota Sports 800
Introduction
Hello and welcome back to Automotive Shotime. With May also ending and June coming in close, I’m sure that you have a lot of plans for the upcoming months. I wish you good health under the scorching heat or (freezing cold depending on where you live) and will be able to enjoy the rest of May.
But for now, we will be looking back to the far past, into the 1960 era, as today’s car is a car created before any other JDM sports car was even a thing. Obviously, calling it a ‘supercar’ will be an absolute joke using modern-day standards, but this is the car that started it all. If you are a fan of any JDM, you have to thank this car, and I will tell you why this car is so influential and essential to the entire Japanese sports car industry.
The beginning of all JDM sports cars
During the 1960s era, many car manufacturers around the world began to produce fun little sports cars. Datsun was working on the first generation Fairlady, Honda was working on something called the S600, and the first ever 911 was still a work in progress back in the day, with their 356 making its gestation first. Toyota saw the success of its fellow car manufacturers and decided to make a sports car of its own. This cute-looking vehicle was the first ever production sports car made by Toyota.
The project for the Sports 800 began in 1962 when Toyota released the concept vehicle, the Publica Sports. It was first displayed at the 1962 Tokyo Motor Show, featuring a sliding canopy roof and a compact, aerodynamic design. Japan has never seen anything quite like this before. Called the “Publica Sports,” the car was designed by Shozo Sato, a renowned Japanese industrial designer, and Toyota engineer Tatsuo Hasegawa — a former WWII aircraft designer.
Whether you believe it or not, this car is the great-grandfather of every other future JDM under the Toyota brand. This car was extremely popular among the public after its debut. It is only due to the success of this car that Toyota then decided to manufacture more sports cars in the upcoming decades. That includes the 2000GT, Supra, Celica, MR2, AE86, the modern GT86, and even the Lexus LFA. In conclusion, if you are a fan of any of the above cars, or you loved cars because of those JDMs, it is all thanks to the Sports 800.
Do not underestimate its potential
The Toyota Sports car’s spec is ‘special’. It has a 790cc, two-cylinder, horizontally opposed air-cooled engine, derived from the Toyota Publica compact. It produces a ‘blistering’ 45 brake horsepower and 46 lb-ft of torque, all to the rear wheels. The figures are laughable for a normal car nowadays, let alone a sports car.
Despite that, the Sports 800 is extremely light — only 580 kilograms, to be exact. The reason behind this is that the car’s outer body was made primarily of aluminum and the inner unibody shell was made from thinner gauge steel. It’s unbelievable that Toyota already had the idea of using aluminum as a material in making a sports car to reduce weight.
Not only that, but the car is also extremely small. It's even smaller than a Generation 1 MX-5 Miata if you put them side by side. This combination of extremely low weight and absurdly small dimensions makes the car super agile and fun to drive, and it’s able to reach a top speed of almost 100 mile-per-hour. For a car born in 1962 and with only 44 horsepower, I’d say it’s really good.
And the amazing things don’t stop there. The Sports 800 actually has an aerodynamic design. It may not look very fancy compared to more modern sports cars, but this is one reason why it is able to reach almost 160 kph despite having that little power. Another benefit of the Sports 800 is its impressive mpg. Thanks to its engine only having a displacement of 0.8 litres and good aerodynamic design, according to the claim of some Sports 800 owners, the car can have a maximum of 73 mpg. It’s mindblowing how surprisingly good this car is, and it shows that the Japanese are really the ‘work smarter, not harder’ type of people.
Sports 800’s history after 1962
The car officially made its launch in 1965, and the production went on for four years until 1969. During this time, only an approximate number of 3,131 units were sold, with most of them only being sold in Japan, and very few of them ended up in other places in the world. Interestingly enough, even though Japan is a country with a right-hand drive, around 300 Sports 800s were manufactured to be left-hand-drive. This is because those models were made for use in Okinawa, a Japanese island that hosted a large US military base and as a result tended to prefer left-hand drive cars.
The Sports 800 also had some history in motorsport racing. In 1966, a pair of Sports 800s participated in the Suzuka 500 km endurance race, with one of them finishing first in the race’s fuel economy category. A year later, during the Fuji 24-hour race, Toyota impressed everyone with a one-two-three finish, with a Sports 800 finishing in 3rd behind two 2000GTs. The Sports 800 also claimed victorious in the 1965 All-Japan Clubman Championship Race, a remarkable feat given the surge in homegrown compact sports car competition in the 1960s.
Today, it is said that just 10% of the original number are thought to survive, and almost all of them remain in Japan with a few exceptions. Even though this car is super rare, it is pretty reasonably priced. The ones sold in the US cost around $40,000 to $60,000, and it costs even less in Japan. It sounds like a great deal for such a fun little sports car, and considering it’s a Toyota without fancy electronics, the car would probably be quite reliable as well, if we disregard its age.
My thoughts on the Toyota Sports 800
Of all the cars that got featured on Automotive Shotime, this is probably the least well-known and remarkable for many. It’s not a modern supercar with a state-of-the-art design. It’s not a hypercar with almost 2000 horsepower. It’s not the most famous racing car in history either. And most importantly, there are many other cars from its era that are way more impactful, which completely buried the Sports 800 into the flow of history, forgotten.
But we just saw why this car is so much more than that. It has a fantastic backstory, and it gave way to all of our favourite Toyota sports cars made afterwards. Without it, there wouldn’t be cars like the Toyota Supra and Lexus LFA, and it would be hard to imagine what the world of cars would be like without them.
But the other thing that amazes me about the Sports 800 is how Toyota know exactly how to make a good sports car on their first try. Nowadays, aluminum is well-known to be a fantastic material for making cars, but Toyota already knew this back in the 60s, possibly much earlier than most other car manufacturers. They also considered effective aerodynamics for more speed and efficient fuel economy. Most importantly, they knew how to make a fun sports car. Each person who bought a Sports 800 loved the car, and it was due to this brilliant little sports car that we get to see other masterpieces made by Toyota.
It is a car full of wonders, and I have to thank it for the changes it made to the automotive world for many decades after its launch.
Conclusion
And that wraps up today’s episode of Automotive Shotime on the Toyota Sports 800. For the next episode, we will look at yet another underrated car. A pickup truck born in the USA during the 1990s looks like a commercial truck for normal people, yet can beat a Ferrari. What might this car be? Find out in the next episode. Take care, and see you next time!
