1967-1970 Tanaka C20X
Tanaka’s first ever sports car…
1967 Tanaka C20X shown in Century Brown
The 1967-1970 Tanaka C20X is Tanaka’s first ever sports car. The money from selling the 1st generation Aventis was immediately put into developing Haruto Tanaka’s dream car. Inspired by cars from that era, the body was carefully sculpted. Tanaka took their A-Series SOHC I4 engine from the Aventis and grafted 2 more cylinders to make it an I6 engine. The new engine was called the LR-Series. Haruto Tanaka’s goal was to show what Japan, and most importantly, Tanaka Motors what they’re capable of, especially with Tanaka Motors only open for 2 years. The end result was this:
(Closed Pop-up headlights)
(Opened Pop-up headlight)
Originally unveiled in the 1966 Geneva Auto Show for the 1967 model year, it shooked the whole world. “How the hell did this 1-year old company started building sports cars?” a quote by one of the automotive journalist back when it was first unveiled. Haruto Tanaka was the head designer of this project. He wanted to design his very own car and show it to the world what the man was capable of. In the other hand, Takumi Sakeyama was in charge of the engine. The LR28DCOE-A1 unit produces 205HP and 192lb-ft of torque and it screams all the way up 6200RPM. It was mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. The rims are made 15-inch steelies with sports compound tires wrapped around the rims. The C20X has disk brakes on all 4 corners. The interior was made of leather. The seats were made of aluminium to save as much weight as possible. There was a single high-quality mono speaker and an AM radio. The C20X has hydraulic power steering as standard. Safety was kept standard to save weight. A subtle lip and the rear ducktail spoiler was added to reduce lift, with the latter also making the car look virtually “longer”. All this made the car accelerate from 0-60mph in 6.91 seconds, a top speed of 123mph and a max lateral g of 1.02 g’s. The C20X performed well in its time. It’s original price back when it was new in 1967 was $37100 (in 1967 money). And so, this made it one of Tanaka’s best car in history.
Only 300 were made with 50 imported to Europe and Australia, and 15 imported to America by a private exporter.
Throughout 1967-1970, the C20X was offered in 6 different colours. The colours offered were Pure White, Metallica Silver, Gloss Black, Dark Deep Blue, Mahogany and Century Brown.