You Only Live Twice

Toyota 2000GT by Shin Yoshikawa

The wave of English pop-culture experts hit an all time high in the 60's. ... But while Agent 007 has become one of the world's best-known moive characters, the second most famous actor in early Bond films was a car - ...The Aston-Martin DB5...

Long before the Bond role was being sold to the highest bidder, however, film producer Albert R. Broccoli found himself in a vehicular quandry ... (You only live twice) was to be filmed in part in Japan, (and) called for an exotic, spy worthy car of Japanese extractionextraction. - something that up unitil very recetnly hadn't even existed. ...Shown a styling image of the brand new Toyota 2000GT (the car had not yet entered production) he recognized it as the perfrectperfect machine for the job.

For closeups, one car's dashboard was modified to inlcude flashy new Sony communications gear.
The magnesium wheels of the production model weren't ready yet (so) the Bond cars would wear the wire wheels already being used by the other 2000GT prototypes.	Ironically, actress Akiko Wakabayashi could not drive so chase scenes were filmed with stuntmen in wigs.
Since the script required an open car, the first order of buinessbusiness was removing the GT's top. In May of '66, full roadster conversions began at Toyota's Toyopet Service Center facility... Amazingly, Toyota finished the conversion of both cars in just two weeks.	The windshield itself would be acrylic and totally removeable....removable.... for close-ups. The side windows, frames and regulators were removed, a faux rear tonneau cover was created, and a rear hatch area was replaced with a new horizontal trunk.
A targa version of the car was tried but due to the car's small size and Sean Connery's height, it was deemed to look too silly and the full convertible was used instead.

(One)Of carthe two original vehicles made for the movie, one was (eventually)located in Hawai'i and returned to Japan, where it was given a full restoration and put on display at the Toyota Automobile Museum in Aichi, Japan.

The other carcar's resideswhereabouts atare theunknown Bondthough Museumit inis believed to have Keswick.been scrapped. Several production cars were modified as Bond replicas.

This was Toyota's first foray into the sports car market.

For a superb site with extra cool images, please go to http://www.2000gt.net/007/Bond1.php