Ove Andersson - Toyota Team Europe

Toyota Team Europe

In the early 1970s, Andersson was also the owner of his own rally team Andersson Motorsport, which later became the Toyota Team Europe. In 1979 he moved the team from Uppsala to Cologne, Germany where operations were based for an assault on the World Rally Championship.

TTE did not have regular rally victories until the 1980s with Juha Kankkunen and Björn Waldegård. The 1990s provided the bulk of success in World Rally for TTE, with Carlos Sainz, Juha Kankkunen and Didier Auriol providing success for the team. In 1993, Toyota Team Europe was purchased by the Toyota Motor Company and renamed Toyota Motorsport GmbH. For the 1995 TTE was famously banned for 12 months from the WRC for cheating by designing an illegal air restrictor on the ST205 that included both a bypass mechanism and spring-loaded devices to conceal it from scrutineers.

In addition to the World Rally exploits of Toyota Motorsport, the team attempted to win the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race. The team created the Toyota GT One race car, which was entered into the 1998 and 1999 races achieving a best result of second place.

Afterwards, the Cologne factory was sent into overdrive for a Formula One project. Andersson was set to oversee the new team, which designed and produced its first car in 2001. The Toyota TF101 was only a test prototype car to be used around the world before Toyota launched a formal attack on F1. It was driven by Mika Salo and Allan McNish who would also drive the car in its first competitive season, 2002. In charge for the troublesome first few years, Andersson retired in 2003 but was retained as a consultant to Toyota Motorsport GmbH.