Remember the stunning Toyota FT-1 concept? The one you could download in in Gran Turismo 5? Well they’ve only gone and made one for the real world. Sort of.
The job of a car designer must be among the most frustrating in the world. You spend your life creating gorgeous digital mock-ups, full of swoops, angles and gigantic wheels, only to be told by your superiors that what the public actually want is yet another non-descript econo-box.
But sometimes, designers do get their own way. Take Toyota’s Calty design studio, which took the initiative of asking Toyota President and CEO Akio Toyoda if they could put their pet project, the FT-1, into the Gran Turismo 5 videogame. Toyoda duly agreed and eventually drove the virtual car before being so impressed, he gave the green light for a real life concept to be created.
The result is the FT-1 Concept, a car we’d go so far as to suggest is the most beautiful Toyota has created in… maybe ever. Just look at the thing.
Standout features include an interior that allegedly draws inspiration from modern superhero films. You can’t slide into sports seats lined with Spider-Man-style spandex, sadly. Instead, Toyota’s design team went for the finest leather, perhaps in a nod to Batman, Hell Boy or Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass.
Its designers apparently compared leather thicknesses, grain sizes and textures to find the perfect combination, then added raised metal meshing to provide ventilation for the seats while contributing to the sense of texture.
As for the exterior… well, a picture speaks a thousand words.
Will Toyoda take things a step further and give the green light for a production version? We can but hope.
Do yourself a favour and drag your eyeballs slowly across every single image in our gallery, then let us know what you think in the comments below.
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