Leçon histoire auto No 1, Sports 800: Toyota’s forgotten spo

The 1965 Sports 800 isn’t Japan’s first production sports car (the Honda S600 predates it by a couple of years) but it is definitely Toyota’s first foray into a sporting vehicle. With a compact 45hp, twin carbed, pushrod boxer-twin 790cc motor under the bonnet, the plucky little 580kg coupe could be whanged to a Honda S600 matching 95mph. Compared to the Honda roadster, the Toyota car is about 10hp down on power but 80kg down on weight, so the performance in the day would have been competitive. And just like the Honda S roadsters, the Sports 800 was a complete sales flop, only selling 3300 between 1965 to 1969 (to the Honda’s 11,000).

But the thing that people most remember about the Sports 800 are its tiddly, toy-like looks. Even if you see a picture of a real one, it’s exaggeratedly egglike proportions require a double-take to ensure that it isn’t actually a close up of a Choro-Q toy that you’re looking at!