00:00 I have often said, what makes a really great car designer is the sense that you don't forget
00:05 that 12, 13 year old inside you.
00:07 When you're 12, 13 years old and you're drawing cars, you're basically fearless.
00:10 And you're not afraid to draw weird and crazy.
00:13 And you're doing it just for pure entertainment value.
00:17 The moment that you lose sight of that point, you will put everyone to sleep.
00:23 So keeping that thread of that inner 12, 13 year old kid is what I'm going to do.
00:29 13 year old kid who's not afraid to take chances.
00:32 That's what makes a really good designer.
00:33 And that's what makes a really good car.
00:41 Well this project to develop this new Toyota sports car was developed at Calty.
00:45 The idea came from us.
00:48 There really is not an iconic sports car in the Toyota brand right now.
00:52 Lexus introduced LFA, really great car, exotic sports car, super car.
00:59 And Scion has FRS.
01:00 But the Toyota brand has nothing.
01:02 So we really wanted to fix that and try to find a great solution for what we would call
01:08 a true sports car.
01:09 And at the high performance end, Toyota stopped producing super in the late 90s.
01:14 So we wanted to pick up some spirit, some enthusiasm from that last generation sports
01:21 car that Toyota had.
01:22 Generally we start with a creative process.
01:25 We start with large concept.
01:27 From concept we try to create an image board of what this car could be without even designing
01:32 the car yet.
01:33 So some kind of hint of where we want to go with this, kind of a road map.
01:38 From there, once we establish that road map, we start sketching.
01:41 In this case, everybody in the building, we invited all designers to be a part of.
01:45 Many, many hundreds of sketches were developed.
01:48 And from there, there's obviously a review process that brings us down to maybe six exteriors
01:53 and six interiors.
01:54 We go into a scale model, a small scale model.
01:56 Then we go larger in the next step and then finally full size.
02:01 And from that full size model, we're thinking about details, parts.
02:06 And from there, it just completes and paint.
02:08 We paint it.
02:09 Then we get to enjoy kind of the fruits of our labor and take a look at what it finally
02:15 looks like.
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02:25 The name is FT1.
02:27 It's a future Toyota number one.
02:30 The intent is to really show what Toyota could do in terms of sports car.
02:33 I think the overall proportion as a front engine, rear drive car, we really wanted to
02:41 inject that kind of excitement into this product.
02:44 The Supra and the entire lineage of the 2000 GT, they were always straight sixes.
02:51 And while we're not saying what engine's going in this car, we wanted it to give the impression
02:57 anyway that it's in the lineage of that straight six motor.
03:01 So there's a long dash to axle.
03:04 Cabin architecture is very snug and tight.
03:07 The track is out really wide and engine set low.
03:11 I think those are all key attributes of not only the last generation Supra, which I think
03:16 is the most iconic Supra, and also the Toyota 2000 GT.
03:21 So the inspiration for the vehicle, a lot of it came from understanding the fact that
03:28 we're trying to create an authentic sports car.
03:30 We wanted to kind of employ the things that you know to be realistic and believable for
03:36 a vehicle of this type.
03:37 To create your own unique design alchemy for the interior that provides, I think, a completely
03:43 unique taste for the viewer.
03:46 The steering wheel is kind of the first piece of this kind of information setup that we
03:51 have.
03:52 There's a small screen on top that actually has your shift light, it has your Prindle
03:55 that runs through, and it has your modes.
03:58 We have two controllers, one per side.
04:00 And the idea is that you can drive this car at speed and then still operate kind of the
04:06 functions that you need to for a real car, not just for racing.
04:09 The heads-up display, we call it the HUM heads-up meter.
04:12 We tested out some heads-up displays on fighter jets.
04:15 We kind of got the idea that this is clearly kind of the best way to go.
04:19 They're not constantly looking down, they need to be looking ahead.
04:21 You want to be keeping your eyes on the track in front of you, so all of the meters should
04:25 be directly out ahead of you.
04:26 FT1 has kind of a unique interior architecture.
04:29 We call it the slingshot architecture.
04:32 The idea is that when you're sitting in the seat, which is an unusual design unto itself,
04:37 you're actually the projectile in that design.
04:40 The seating design is very purpose-built, very much like the interior.
04:44 There's only soft padding kind of where you need it.
04:46 Everything else is hard shell.
04:50 Yeah, it's always fun seeing a car in motion.
04:58 A lot of our development time is spent reviewing static models, so when we can actually get
05:04 inside and drive it and see the car moving, it presents a different view, a different
05:09 perspective on what we did.
05:12 We all know cars are animate objects flying around in our world, and they never really
05:18 were meant to be static objects, so we really love it when we can experience the full design
05:24 in that aspect.
05:25 When we see it in person at the end, I think that's kind of the icing on the cake for all
05:31 the designers, that we did the right thing, and I think in this case it was pretty stunning.
05:36 Hopefully, it gets people's blood temperature kind of up and excited about.
05:45 Everything we did, every shape on this car had a sense of purpose.
05:48 We coined the term "functional sculpting."
05:51 Every aspect, every scoop, flip up, lip, whatever to create down force, it all had a purpose.
05:58 We kind of looked at this car as an exogenetic process.
06:02 It's like the car is designed by outside forces, meaning aero, and the designers kind of used
06:08 their hands to create a shape that feels like that.
06:12 It's almost like an erosion process that creates this.
06:15 At the tips of everything, every form, there's a trip edge that controls the air to create
06:22 more down force.
06:24 Every designer feels a slave to the compromises sometimes.
06:27 At this point, this car is one of those cars that going into it, it's all excitement, but
06:33 this car actually I think exceeds my expectations of kind of how it could possibly come out.
06:38 Collectively, we had such a strong concept, really just an amazing kind of group thing
06:44 where we all kind of had the same philosophy coming together, and that was, you know, it
06:48 goes all the way up the ladder.
06:50 Everybody had the same intention for the car.
06:52 This is exactly the kind of car that you envision yourself creating when you're a little kid,
06:59 and you're doing all your dueling on your notepads in school.
07:03 It's the kind of car that you always sketched.
07:05 So from that point of view, it's taken a while to get to that point.
07:08 You know, Toyota's a company, we kind of got out of the sports car business for a while.
07:13 We're trying to re-engage our excitement and our fun to drive aspects of our vehicles.
07:18 So from that point of view, I'm really thrilled that we're able to jump back into these kind
07:23 of projects.
07:24 We want this car.
07:25 You know, we want this in our garage.
07:27 We want to wash it, we want to touch it, and we can say we're a part of this big project
07:31 that hopefully has a lot of historical value to bring back a sports car and a Toyota brand.
07:38 I think that's kind of the big goal from our perspective.
07:44 But mainly from a selfish perspective, I want this car in my garage.
07:49 I think people are going to be really surprised to see this car.
07:53 It's been a long time since we've had a sports car of this magnitude, a proposal that we've
08:00 thrown out there and said, "Hey, what about this?
08:03 When this car rolls out, it'll probably be dark, maybe the headlights will be on, maybe
08:08 you can pick up a bit of the silhouette of the car, you understand immediately what kind
08:12 of animal this is."
08:14 And that's when the reaction starts.
08:17 I think if we can achieve that, then it's pretty successful.
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08:41 [Music]
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