When it comes to the most significant historical Japanese automobiles among Japanese cars, the 2000GT is at the top of the list. In the category of 2000GTs and Carroll Shelby’s former SCCA race car is among the most important historically. The tuned Carroll Shelby Toyota 2000GT has recently sold for $2,535,000 and is the first Japanese car to surpass the $2 million mark at auction.
Shelby 2000GT isn’t necessarily significant due to its winning history. If you want to find 2000GTs that actually won the checkered flag, you’d be looking at Japan. Unfortunately, the winning race cars are lost to time and likely to the scrapyard. However, an American farmer who turned into a Le Mans racer, with his golden touch, turned these cars into the most expensive ones out there.
A typical well-restored and maintained 1965 Cobra 427 is worth approximately 2 million dollars. Carroll Shelby’s personal 1965 Cobra 427 was his private car until his death at the age of 62, was sold in 2012 for $5.94 million. In addition, the highest-priced Cobra ever purchased was the first constructed that was sold for $13.75 million in 2016. setting a new world record set by an American automobile at the time.
Shelby has indeed handled this Toyota 2000GT and has the serial number MF10-10001. This makes it the first car to come that has been taken off production. However, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison since Shelby is much more closely linked to Cobra in contrast to Toyota. However, it’s pretty mind-blowing to consider this Shelby had been working on this Toyota in the same period when he was building his last in his Cobras and completing his battle against Ferrari during Le Mans with a revenge-driven invoice from Ford.
It is one of three produced by Shelby and the other with the numbers MF10-10005 and 10006. The particular model was driven by Dave Jordan, while its white-on-red counterpart was by Scooter Patrick. The 2000GTs were driven at the SCCA C-Production championships for only one season, in 1968, in which they scored four 1st, 8 2nd, and six 3rd places. In the end, the team came in fourth in points, a place trailing Porsche and Triumph. Jordan’s evaluation was that, while it didn’t have the horsepower to match the Porsches, but its performance is “phenomenal.”
After several races and a time as a display vehicle to Toyota Gulf State distributors based in Houston, the car was transferred to Toyota America’s original Southern California headquarters. It was painted numerous times, used for advertising purposes, and occasionally used by Toyota executives. In the 1980s, it was bought by Bob Tkacik of Maine Line Exotics, who restored the car and repainted it with the original livery of racing.
Previously the most expensive Japanese car to be auctioned off fetched the price of a little more than a million dollars which was also a Toyota 2000GT.
Source: JapaneseNostalgicCar
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