James Bond’s Toyota 2000GT Gets a Seven-Day Tokyo Encore

A Toyota 2000GT presented as the Bond car from "You Only Live Twice" goes on display in Tokyo’s Minami-Aoyama district today, November 14, and stays for just seven days, until November 20. Entry is free, and the car is the closing act of a James Bond event at a British-goods store a short walk from Omotesando Station.

The display is timed to the film’s anniversary, since "You Only Live Twice," the first James Bond film shot in Japan, premiered in June 1967 and turns 60 next year. The organizer is billing the Toyota as the symbol of that film, in which a white open-top 2000GT shares the screen with Sean Connery’s Bond.

The display is the work of BLBG Co., the company that runs the Vulcanize London stores, which announced it in a release on PR Times on November 13, and Car Watch reported it the same day. The car is shown at Vulcanize London Aoyama, 5-8-5 Minami-Aoyama in Minato-ku, which is open from 11 am to 7 pm, about three minutes on foot from Exit B1 of Omotesando Station on the Ginza, Chiyoda and Hanzomon subway lines. The wider "The World of James Bond in Aoyama" event began on November 4, and according to the store’s event page its first phase, which ran through November 13, featured the Aston Martin DBS V12 from "Casino Royale." The final week pairs the Toyota with replica Bond clothing and accessories from Turnbull & Asser, N.Peal, Cumbria Crystal and the 007 Store, along with a small run of "007 Crew Gear" made for film crews.

Original Car or Stand-In?

Neither the organizer nor the outlets that reported the event say which car this is. BLBG’s release calls it the legendary Bond car "TOYOTA 2000GT" from "You Only Live Twice" and shows a still of Connery with the car, but it does not say whether it is one of the cars used in filming, a replica or a recreation, who owns it, or whether it is the open-top car or a coupe. The Car Watch report repeats the same description and adds nothing on the car’s identity. Readers hoping to see a screen-used car should treat the question as open until the organizer says more.

What is on record is where the surviving film car lives. The Toyota Automobile Museum says in its history of the 2000GT that it holds five 2000GTs, including the Bond car, which it describes as one of the two vehicles prepared for shooting. The museum does not say anything about lending a car to the Aoyama event.

How a Coupe Became a Bond Car

The museum’s account explains why the movie car looks different from every 2000GT Toyota sold. The 2000GT was a coupe, and Toyota proposed a targa top for the film, but the production team wanted a convertible so it could film the actors’ faces. Toyota cut the roof off, rebuilt the rear trunk area, made a removable acrylic windshield for camera work and lowered the body by about 25 mm to keep its proportions, so the Bond car stands 1,104 mm tall against 1,160 mm for the coupe. In the film it is not Bond’s own car at all but one belonging to Japan’s intelligence service, driven by Aki, the agent who rescues him. Shooting took place in September 1966 after a very short preparation period, with a production period of only two weeks, and the film premiered in June 1967, a month after the 2000GT itself went on sale.

The road car was a serious machine for its day. Toyota developed it with Yamaha Motor, and Toyota’s 2020 release on reproduction parts says it used a 2.0-liter DOHC straight six, double-wishbone suspension at all four corners, four-wheel disc brakes, magnesium alloy wheels and retractable headlamps, with a top speed of 220 km/h. The museum puts output at 150 PS, about three times what a typical passenger car of the time made. Before launch it set three world records and 13 international records in a speed trial that started on October 1, 1966. Production ended in 1970 after 337 cars.

The American Connection

For US readers, the display itself is out of reach unless you are in Tokyo this week, since the Toyota leaves Aoyama when the event closes on November 20 and no US showing has been announced. The car’s story runs through America, though. The museum says three 2000GTs were taken to the United States to race in Sports Car Club of America events, and that the Bond car itself was later used for sales promotion in the US before a Toyota employee found it in Hawaii and had it brought back to Japan.

The 2000GT’s influence also reaches Toyota’s current product plans. When Toyota Gazoo Racing and Lexus revealed the GR GT, GR GT3 and Lexus LFA Concept on December 5, 2025, Toyota described the three as flagships "in the manner of the Toyota 2000GT of yesteryear and the Lexus LFA." Owners of the original can still keep them running with factory help, since Toyota reproduces and sells 2000GT spare parts through its GR Heritage Parts program, limited to owners to prevent reselling.

The Toyota Report Take

It is a little odd that the most famous Toyota in film history is getting its anniversary moment in a British clothing store rather than at a Toyota venue, but that is also a sign of how far the car’s reach goes: a store that sells Bond’s shirts and sweaters decided the white Toyota was the best way to close its show. The 2000GT did more than any other car to tell the world, and America in particular, that Toyota could build something beautiful and fast.

We would like the organizer to say plainly whether this is a screen-used car, a tribute or a replica, because that changes what visitors are actually looking at. With the film’s 60th anniversary arriving in 2027 and Toyota leaning on the 2000GT name to sell the GR GT, a proper showing of the real museum car in the US next year would be an easy win for Toyota.