5 Of The Best Looking Toyota Sports Cars Ever Made

Toyota has a long history of sports car production going back to the '60s, when Japanese buyers first started getting a taste for motorsports. In the decades since, the brand has unveiled a long list of sports cars models, many of which have gone on to garner dedicated fanbases. Toyota's sports cars might not be famous for their looks in the same way as some of their European counterparts, but the brand has still churned out plenty of head-turning models over the years.

We think that these five models are among the brand's best looking sports cars to date, although there are plenty of other good-looking Toyota models that didn't make the list. We've only included models that have been sold with Toyota badges, and so good-looking sports cars from Lexus — including the brand's only true supercar, the LFA — haven't been included here. We've also excluded prototypes and concept cars, with these five good-looking models all being available for enthusiasts to buy from dealerships when they were new.

Toyota's affordable mid-engined sports car arguably looked its best in its second generation, where its Euro-inspired design earned it the nickname the 'poor man's Ferrari.' Like most of Toyota's other great sports cars, the MR2 was compact and lightweight, which helped offset the fact that some of its engine choices weren't particularly powerful. Nonetheless, the MR2 could still feel fast even if its performance numbers don't match up to modern sports cars today, and it looked fast to boot.

Having a mid-engine design allows the MR2 to be as low-slung as possible, while the pop-up headlights add an extra dash of retro charm. While other good-looking Toyota sports cars like the 2000GT and MkIV Supra remain far out of reach for the average enthusiast, the SW20 MR2 is still affordably priced. According to Hagerty, a 1990 MR2 Turbo in good condition is worth $20,600 at the time of writing. In a way, that still makes it the 'poor man's Ferrari' today, although today's buyers are more likely to be cross-shopping it with other JDM classics of the same era than hankering after Italian exotics.

Every sports car in Toyota's lineup owes its existence to the brand's dedicated performance car, the 2000GT. The history of the 2000GT involves not one but two manufacturers: Toyota and Yamaha. Toyota was responsible for designing, testing, and selling the car, but it was manufactured at a Yamaha facility, since Toyota didn't have room on its production line to accommodate a low-volume model.

The 2000GT was unlike any Japanese car before it, both in its looks and in its performance. It was also pricier than any previous model to emerge from the country, which hampered its sales success. In total, only 351 examples of the car were sold between 1967 and 1970, and even fewer are known to survive today.

The car's smooth, flowing bodywork gives it a timeless look, while its compact proportions set it further apart from other sports cars on the market at the time. It was so small, in fact, that when it made an appearance in the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice," the roof had to be chopped off the car in order for actor Sean Connery to fit in it. Credit for the 2000GT's design goes to Satoru Nozaki, one of Toyota's in-house designers at the time.

Every JDM enthusiast knows about the MkIV Supra because of its legendary 2JZ engine, which could be tuned to produce outlandish horsepower figures. However, a key part of the Supra's appeal is also its styling, which was a significant departure from the angular, more traditional look of the previous generation. The MkIV not only drove like a car from the future, it looked like a car from the future, too. In a 1993 review, Car and Driver noted the visual similarities between the Supra and the Ferrari F40, pointing out that the grille shape, brake scoops, and headlights seem Ferrari-inspired.

Unlike the Ferrari, the Supra could be bought by any enthusiast with a fat enough wallet. Plenty of enthusiasts did buy one, but even so, finding a stock example today is not an easy task. Many of those cars were later modified to make full use of the considerable tuning potential. Alongside the mechanical tweaks, many Supras also gained body kits and custom wheels, particularly after the "Fast and Furious" franchise helped catapult the Supra to new levels of international fame. Arguably, the stock Supra is still the best looking of the bunch, although collectors will now need to shell out a considerable sum to get their hands on a clean example. The most pristine examples can now fetch amounts well in excess of $100,000 at auction, with the priciest selling for more than $200,000.

There aren't many properly affordable sports cars left on the market today, and so the latest Toyota GR86 shouldn't be taken for granted by enthusiasts. It's small, lightweight, and fun to throw around, and it also arguably looks better than the first generation car. The revised front end looks a little meaner than before, but it's still a much less divisive design than its stablemate, the Mk5 Supra.

It's easy to look at any modern small, low-slung sports car more favorably now that the entire segment is a dying breed, but even pitched against Toyota's older models, the GR86 still looks good. Unlike some of its pricier rivals — such as the Nissan Z — the Toyota hasn't fallen victim to the faux-retro trend either. It's not clear how much longer the GR86 will remain in production, as in markets like the U.K. and Europe, it has already been taken off sale. Rumors have also surfaced of an upcoming successor that might arrive as soon as 2027, but at the time of writing, Toyota has not officially announced any plans to discontinue the current generation of the car.

Toyota's recent WRC efforts have proved very successful, but its '90s program was shrouded in controversy after the race-spec Celica GT-Four was banned because of an illegal restrictor plate on its turbocharger. That wasn't before it racked up scores of event wins, with the ST185 generation of the car being particularly successful. For our money, it's also the best-looking generation of the Celica GT-Four, although its successor, the ST205, is also a strong contender.

Perhaps it's down to the famous images of the competition car ploughing through mud, sand, and gravel trails with ease, but the roadgoing ST185 GT-Four looks every bit the all-terrain beast that its racing counterpart proved to be. Modern WRC cars are loosely based on hatchbacks but look very different from their roadgoing counterparts. At the same time, there are very few notable visual differences between the ST185 road car and race car. American enthusiasts looking for their own piece of Toyota rallying heritage miss out on the current GR Yaris, but the ST185 GT-Four remains temptingly affordable, with average sale prices hovering a little under $20,000 at the time of writing.