1. These days Toyota AE86s can sometimes fetch upwards of £10,000 for an immaculate UK car. Incredible considering that ten years ago you could often pick them up for under £1000.
2. Toyota were banned from the 1996 WRC for creating an illegal bypass of the inlet air restrictor. It was invisible during inspection, but was enough to give the Celica GT4 WRCs a huge power advantage over the opposition.
3 Late ’90s GT1 race rules meant all cars needed to have luggage space big enough to fit a suitcase. Toyota sneakily got past this rule in their Le Mans winning GT-One by making the fuel tank the correct shape to fit a suitcase in!
4. Toyota is, without doubt, huge. They are on sale in more countries than even McDonald’s. They don’t taste quite as good though…
5. In the UK Toyota Land Cruisers are mostly used by farmers and builders, but in the Middle East they are often turned in to supercar destroying 1000bhp plus monsters!
6. We may all be familiar with Celica, Supra and MR2, but in the early days, Toyota weren’t too imaginative with their car names. Their first two production cars were called the AA and AB.
7. Toyota created an insane 4WD, 650bhp, 2.2ltr turbocharged Mk1 MR2 rally prototype
called the 222D, but it never saw action as Group B was banned. Amazingly, Toyota
Europe still owns it and regularly take it to shows and events.
8. Toyota were one of the pioneers of turbocharging Japanese cars. Their insane
Toyota 7 race car from 1970 weighed in at just over 600kg, and kicked out around 850bhp thanks to two massive turbos hanging out of the back of the car.
9. The SARD MC8-R was a one-off road car based on a Mk2 MR2, powered by a 600bhp turbocharged version of the 1UZ V8 normally found in the Lexus LS400. This single road car was built so the race versions were eligible to compete at Le Mans in the mid-’90s.
10. Toyota isn’t exactly a name you’d associate with muscle car style, big pushrod V8s and four-barrel carbs, but Toyota race in NASCAR with a specially made pushrod carb-fed V8 pushing out a massive 750bhp.
