Ove Andersson (3 January 1938 – 11 June 2008), nicknamed Påven ("the Pope"), was a Swedish rally driver and the first head of Toyota's F1 programme.

He then went on to work in a car repair shop, the owner of which encouraged Andersson to begin racing after showing him his skills with a motorbike.

[1] In 1958, Andersson completed his compulsory military service with the United Nations (UN) peace-keeping force in the Gaza Strip.

His friend Bengt Söderström became a Saab factory rally driver, and Andersson was able to borrow parts to make his car more competitive.

In 1979 he moved the team from Uppsala to Cologne Germany where operations were based for an assault on the World Rally Championship.

At the end of the 1995 World Rally Championship season TMG was banned for twelve months[4] from the WRC for using an illegal turbo restrictor[5] on the Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205 that included both a bypass mechanism and spring-loaded devices to conceal it from scrutineers.

[6] In addition to the World Rally exploits of Toyota Motorsport, the team attempted to win the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race.

Toyota Motorsports director and its Formula One team chief at the time, Tadashi Yamashina, said he was shocked and saddened by the news.