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Considered to be Toyota's first sports car, the prototype, called the Toyota Publica Sports, made a debut at the 1962 Tokyo Auto Show. The Toyota Sports 800 is also called the Yota-Hachi, yota being a short for of Toyota and hachi being the Japanese word for "8."

The car's designers were actually hybrid. Shozo Sato was a designer originally from Datsun. Together with Toyota engineer, Tatsuo Hasegawa, who is an aircraft designer during the World War II, they made the Sports 800 as lightweight and as agile as possible. It is also one of the first cars to implement a lift-out roof panel or targa top, which became the model for the Porsche Targa.

Tags: automobile, Toyota Publica Sports, Tokyo Auto Show 1962, Yota-Hachi, Shozo Sato, Datsun, Tatsuo Hasegawa, Toyota, Porsche Targa, car, auto, sports car, toyota sports 800, japan