Off With Its Head... or His Head!.... [PIC]

Built between 1967 and 1970, The Toyota 2000GT was a collaborative effort between Toyota and Yamaha, with Toyota designing the car and Yamaha building it. Its luxurious wood trimmed interior came from Yamaha's piano division. Its small 2.0 liter DOHC 6 produced only 150 HP but it was enough to set 3 world records and 13 endurance and speed records during its 1967 trials. Somewhere between '69 and '70, I saw one of these cars on the road in Bangkok, where I was stationed and it was a jaw dropping event. It looked and sounded so cool, but it was so tiny compared to the Datsun Fairlady Zs (AKA: Nissan 240Z) that were also showing up then. So many off the officers were ordering the Zs to be delivered to San Francisco/Oakland port to pick up when they finished their tour. Well the 2000GT turned out to be just another really cool car I couldn't fit in. Case in point, Toyota made a deal to showcase the car as the Japanese version of Bond's Aston Martin DB5 for the movie "You Only Live Twice". Well, Sean Connery, at 6' 2", was 3" taller than the roof ( and I'm 6' 3") so to save the deal, Toyota lopped the roof off of 2 cars to create faux roadsters, to accommodate Connery and it had to be driven by one of the Japanese "Bond girls" with his head 3" higher that in the windscreen in the passenger seat.

The model is beautifully crafted by Ebbro as is my Fairlady Z. It's remarkably finished. scaled and contented with brightwork that looks nickel plated. Ebbro does mostly 1/43 Japanese automobiles, but their 1/24s are to die for. This model finished in Gold replicates the car as it exists in Toyota's museum.

Here's the Bond car: