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Win an AUTOart 1:18 Toyota 2000G

18 February, 2015

The Toyota 2000GT was Japan’s first high-speed two-seater fastback coupé (one convertible version being produced for use in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice) to break numerous international speed and endurance records during the late ’70s and even drawing the attention of Carroll Shelby, who prepared a team of cars for use in the 1968 SCCA production car race series in the US.

Only 351 examples of the swoopy-looking 2000GT were built between 1967 and 1970 (some sources quote a lower figure of 337) but the car was hardly a sales success. However, today, surviving examples are worth serious money — especially in their homeland.

This gorgeous 1:18 die-cast model comes from AUTOart’s Millennium collection and, as we’ve come to expect from AUTOart, detailing is exemplary. The Yamaha-developed 112kW twin-cam six looks totally authentic with its battery of Solex carburettors. The model also includes gearbox pop-up headlamps, opening access panels located on either side of the car and, of course, a fully detailed interior.

Thanks to the good guys at Toymod, the NZ AUTOart distributor, we have one example of this stunning Toyota 2000GT to give away to a lucky reader — just answer the following question:

Q:    Yamaha developed the 2000GT’s high-spec overhead cam cylinder head — but from which humdrum Toyota saloon did the engine’s bottom-end originate?

 

This competition is now closed

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”

Tradie’s Choice

30 August, 2024

Clint Wheeler purchased this 1962 Holden FJ Panelvan as an unfinished project, or as he says “a complete basket case”. Collected as nothing more than a bare shell, the rotisserie-mounted and primed shell travelled the length of the country from the Rangiora garage where it had sat dormant for six years to Clint’s Ruakaka workshop. “Mike, the previous owner, was awesome. He stacked the van and parts nicely. I was pretty excited to get the van up north. We cut the locks and got her out to enjoy the northland sun,” says Clint. “The panelvan also came with boxes of assorted parts, some good, some not so good, but they all helped.”