This story starts all the way back in the 1980s. FIA Group B rally reached a point where its unhindered development and exploding popularity meant that fatalities of drivers and spectators were beginning to stack. The planned successor to Group B, called Group S, was meant to reign in speeds with a lower horsepower limit, and allow for a prototype-like series with fewer required homologation cars, reducing costs. With Group B's cancellation, Group S became collateral damage, as it too was axed, and the cars already developed by Group B participants Lancia, Audi, Ford, Peugeot, Toyota, and Opel for Group S were made purposeless.

One of those cars was Toyota's MR2-based 222D.

The 222D never raced, and officially disappeared for two decades, before finally appearing in a showcase drive for the 2006 Goodwood Festival of Speed. The question of how competitive the 222D would have been, and whether homologation variants would have been available to MR2 customers has intrigued rally fans and the MR2 community alike for decades now. With the project incomplete, those questions could never be answered, but it hasn't stopped some MR2 owners from trying to replicate the 222D.

One Belgian man, by the name of Wim Hapers, inspired by the mythical Toyota, set out to build his own 222D. After finishing his replica of the Toyota TRD2000GT, a rare, factory wide body conversion that paid tribute to Toyota's GT-C cars, he settled in trying to build another wide-bodied MR2, but this time, on the first generation, the AW11. He already had loads of experience building wide-bodied cars, sometimes adapting panels to fit cars they were not made for, but he had never built a wide body from scratch.

"Some friends who I talked to about my plans said I should build a 222D," said Hapers to The Drive, "but they also told me I couldn't do it, as nobody ever made a good looking one. It was then I decided I would build it."

Hapers had to start the project by overcoming the first of many hurdles: he needed to learn metalworking to make the buck—a sort of mold, on which the panels are constructed—from iron. With no official reference materials of any kind, as information on the 222D is already sparse, Hapers had to base his build entirely on photographs of the car available on the internet. He estimated measurements based upon known dimensions, such as those of the door handles and taillights.