The 2000GT is such an iconic car that we gave it a makeover. What makes this better is that it will receive the GR treatment.
If there’s one car that Toyota needs to pull out from the grave, it’s the 2000GT. Ever since Toyota revised the Supra, the Japanese brand left everyone with mixed feelings. The MkV Supra became the talk of the town because it’s not what every Japanese car enthusiast imagined. Everyone thought that it would get an updated version of the 2JZ engine, or possibly an engine that is even more powerful. Alas, a lot of people disagreed with the latest Supra’s overall design and build.
However, this 2000GT could have been Toyota’s redemption story, allowing them to learn from their shortcomings and give the people what they really want. This revived 2023 2000GT checks all the right boxes delivering everything that made the original special, while improving the areas where it fell short. Since we’re trying to imagine the new 2000GT, what better way to modernize it than having it developed by the folks at Gazoo Racing.
Digital artist, Rotislav Prokop has reimagined the Toyota 2000GT in this exclusive Hotcars render. While it may appear more like an A90 Supra, you’ll notice some fine lines on the render model that retains the spirit of the ’67 Toyota 2000GT.
Modernizing The Toyota 2000GT Sports Car
HotCars Photo © 2023 Valnet
One noticeable feature from this render is that Prokop replaced the pop-up headlights with modern LED headlights. It has similarities with the A90 Supra’s projector headlights, but this render wanted to leave a bit of resemblance with the old 2000GT’s front-end shape. The artist designed the headlights to appear slightly concealed, similar to how pop-up headlights work. Fortunately, he still kept the original bumper headlight placement and swapped the circle headlights for square ones with an air intake in the middle. He reimagined the entire front bumper to keep up with the designs of today’s sports cars. One might also notice the protruding hood design, piquing your interest about the engine underneath the hood.
And if we take a look at the rear-end, you’ll finally get to see the original lines of the Toyota 2000GT. The rear-end’s styling is similar with the old 2000GT like the taillights and middle exhaust placement. To top it all off, Prokrop added a mini diffuser to the bumper’s underside to improve aerodynamics and to make a statement that it’s a true Toyota sports car.
Letting Gazoo Racing Spearhead The 2023 Toyota 2000GT
HotCars Photo © 2023 Valnet
Who better to lead the new Toyota 2000GT build than Gazoo Racing. GR was responsible for creating some of the best cars that we are all drooling for like the GR Yaris and GR Corolla. Specifically, the Yaris became one of the best cars in GR’s lineup as it won in the hybrid World Rally Championship. 2022 was the sixth instance that Toyota reached the top of WRC’s manufacturers’ classification, the third time since they came back in 2017.
Besides the WRC-winning Yaris, they were also the ones behind the GR Supra. Toyota made a good move at letting GR improve the Supra to become an even better sports car because not too many Supra fans agreed with the recent Toyota-BMW collaboration. If Toyota recreates the new 2000GT, there’s no doubt that GR will be the perfect team to make a GR variant.
Since this is still an idea we have for the famed 2000GT, there’s no saying what type of engine Toyota will use, unless they want the same 2-liter 150 horsepower inline-6 engine type that the old 2000GT had. Nowadays, 150 horses are never enough for a sports car, especially if you want gear heads to appreciate the 2023 Toyota 2000GT. We imagine that the car would have the same turbocharged B58 inline-six power plant as the GR Supra, along with some minor upgrades to push it higher than 250 horsepower. And while we’re at it, we could even see the 2023 2000GT have an EV sibling. This is what we expect due to Toyota’s future plans of releasing 30 EV vehicles by 2030, and some of them will include sports cars.
Why Toyota Should Add The 2000GT In Their GR Lineup
Keep in mind that Toyota’s GR team is still new, and they only have a select few of sports cars and performance trims for standard cars like the Toyota Yaris. GR could finally pull Toyota into the sports car scene if they keep bringing back cars that solidified their name in the history of motorsport. We have already seen the GR Supra in action, and it still couldn’t hit the nail for Toyota lovers. They can advertise the 2023 2000GT as a limited edition sports car, just like its predecessor that only had 351 ever produced.
However, Toyota needs to listen to the masses and write down everything that consumers want out of the brand new 2000GT. Toyota and the GR team should think everything through before they add the tiniest details into building the car. From engine specs to trim levels, the final result could be enough for Toyota to compete with other car brands like Nissan again. Who knows? We might even get to see the fierce rivalry between Toyota and Nissan for old time’s sake. Only this time, the people will be watching on who gets to create the best sports car between the two.
