The pilots' parade for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes place the day before the race, is one of the most popular events. In it, in addition to being able to see all the drivers who will participate in the race aboard machines from other times, the trophy car is also present.
This is the responsibility of the winner of the previous year's edition, where the trophy won is displayed and transported by a convertible car. Toyota, winner of the last edition, ended up being noticed, by coming up with a Celica Cabrio (ST162) from 1987 like the trophy car.
An unusual, modest choice… and an appealing one, but one that ended up becoming one of the stars of the event. The original idea was to bring the 2000 GT convertible that was used in the 1967 movie 007 – You Only Live Twice, but the threat of rain that constantly hovers over Le Mans left that hypothesis aside.
It wasn’t easy, but we have our #LeMans24 trophy car! ? After some (long) time of searching our colleagues from @Toyota_DE kindly offered this 1987 Celica Cabrio! Would’ve been nice to get the convertible 2000GT Bond Car from Japan, alas the threat of rain scuppered the plans… pic.twitter.com/N4NJ998Cha
— Danny F. Chen (@DannyFChen) June 14, 2019
In the end, we didn't lose out. This Celica Convertible, part of the German Toyota collection. it is immaculate.
We are ready! The trophy is going back… #LeMans24 #ToyotaGAZOORacing pic.twitter.com/ZDBpvlxYfs
— Danny F. Chen (@DannyFChen) June 15, 2019
Congratulations to Toyota for their second consecutive victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the TS050 Hybrid #8 from Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso.
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