Yahoo Autos The Toyota A80 Supra That Could've Been
Toyota's CALTY Design Research Center recently celebrated its 50th birthday by unveiling a futuristic "Baby Lunar Cruiser." The team also used the anniversary as an opportunity to show some of the studio's hidden history, sharing for the first time a handful of historically significant concepts and design studies.
The most fascinating is a discarded early take on the fourth-generation Supra, the car that would become Toyota's most significant performance model ever. The CALTY team chose to imagine the fourth generation of Supra as a more typical sports car rather than as a grand tourer, designing a very circular and very early Nineties shape that looks more like an overgrown Mitsubishi Eclipse than a Supra. While some ideas from the concept made production, the brand ultimately went with the iconic A80 Supra design we know today.
Other designs were more successful. In one image, CALTY employees can be seen showing Eiji Toyoda a proposal for a new Land Cruiser variant built primarily for off-road use. Another version of that idea would become the iconic FJ40.
CALTY also took at least two shots at designing a halo sports car. One, the Toyota MX-1 shown here, was built in-house in the image of a mid-engined supercar. For whatever reason, it was also designed with a swing arm steering wheel meant to allow for either right-hand or left-hand drive.
The MX-2 concept went one step further, extending the general shape of the MX-1 to create a more aerodynamic Toyota supercar. Neither ever reached production, but plenty of Toyotas have been designed at CALTY. Recently, the studio created the Lexus LF-LC and Toyota FT-1 concepts. Those eventually reached production as the Lexus LC 500 and new Supra.
You Might Also Like
