The Thrill of Racing in the 1960s
• It’s been about 40 years since you’ve driven the S800. Are you experiencing any nostalgic feelings?
“Sure. But this wasn’t the only car I was driving back then. I basically drove all of the Toyota cars that were out at the time. I did have a number of interesting ‘episodes’ in this car, though. Our main rival was the Honda S800. That was in the GT1 class, so there really wasn’t any other competition. For a short time, Daihatsu raced their P5, but that’s about it. So anyway, it was basically Honda versus Toyota. The good thing about this car (S800) is that it absolutely will not turn over. It’ll spin out, but it won’t flip. And that was a span of time where we just couldn’t lose. Literally, we would win 100 out of 100 races. After that, Honda discontinued their chain drive and went to a normal propeller shaft configuration. That put them up to 120 horsepower against our 75, so we couldn’t win after that…at least when they were serious about it. I mean it was always us against the Honda S800. At most we had three or four cars racing, including privateers, and the races were always fun.”

	The S800 moving from the paddock out to the course.

• Racing in the 1960s meant that you had to start from the ground up…I imagine that everything was built by hand…
“Yes, that’s right. Whenever someone with some sort of new idea was on the staff, the cars would suddenly get a lot faster. As far as driving skills, Toyota was ahead of all of the other manufacturers. They called in Piero Taruffi (former F1/ F2 driver. Designer of the Funabashi Circuit) to come to the Funabashi Circuit to give the Toyota drivers private instruction. We both rode in the Crown, with me behind the wheel. As I drove, he would rattle off instructions in Italian…try this, see what happens when you do that…By then he was an old man with completely white hair, but his book on driving techniques was like the Bible to us.”