A People's Sports Car from Japan.(Escape Roads)

Byline: LARRY EDSALL

The revered and iconic 2000GT was not the first sports car from Toyota. Rather, it was the tiny Sports 800.

In 1955 Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry encouraged the development of a so-called People's Car-a Japanese Beetle, if you will. Much of the postwar Japanese auto industry was based on licensing agreements with overseas manufacturers, but MITI wanted its automakers to undertake design and development, along with export, independently.

MITI's plan called for cooperation on a single new vehicle. The automakers balked and went off on their own. Toyota's variation on the theme was the Publica, which launched in 1961 after development got bogged down when the original fwd architecture saw a detour to a rwd design.

A year after the launch of the Publica two-door sedan, Toyota showed a prototype for a Publica-based sports car with removable roof. The production version would wait until 1965, but that still beat Porsche into production with what we now know as the Targa top.

The Publica sports car was called the Sports 800, which took its name from its sports car styling and 790-cc 2U engine, a two-cylinder, horizontally opposed and air-cooled little pumper. Fed by a single carburetor in the Publica, in the Sports 800 a pair of carbs were used, boosting output to some 45 hp.

By combining that engine with a lightweight chassis and aerodynamic body, the Sports 800 was capable, Toyota said, of 90 mph and better than 50 mpg.