These look like taken from an old James Bond movie.
50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#22Is it just me, or do the concepts from the 90s onwards start looking more like toys and less like useful vehicles?
I mean, there are exceptions like the Nissan AP-X or the Infinity Essence, but the rest doesn't look like something I'd even want to drive. Maybe that's more to do with the change from hand-drawing/photos to 3d rendering, I don't know. But 1990 is roughly where I changed from mainly "that'd be fun/interesting to drive" to mainly "I'd never want to drive that".
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#23One very cool Japanese concept car that isn't in that list is the Isuzu VehiCROSS. It was built as a concept car (Isuzu VX), and then was pushed fairly quickly to production. One of the choices they made to speed it to production was to uses ceramic body panel molds; quicker and easier to create than steel molds, but they wear out quicker. The life of the production and replacement parts was limited by the life of th…
No post body was provided.
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#24What seems always striking when looking at old concept cars is how many of them still have that "wow, I would totally drive that today, AND it would still look futuristic" quality. Geez car companies, show some guts. Build some of those and put them on the road. No new car today gets anyone I know excited, but some of those old photos do.
Occasionally something close to a concept car gets to production.
I had a Subaru SVX that looked like this one: https://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2003_su...
That car was designed by ItalDesign in Italy, a firm famous for many iconic sports and concept car designs. In the OP you see quite a few examples of their work. The inset windows are something of a signature of theirs, as it allows the upper roof area to be more sloped.
Anyhow, it was a pretty striking car to drive around. Unfortunately the US version was only ever sold with a mushy and failure prone transmission. So despite having a rather nice 230 HP flat six engine, a wide stance, and a suspension that would be quite sporting when stiffened up, it never really ate into the low end BMW or Porsche market it was targeted at.
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#25The Nissan Figaro has a lot of personality. Very FIAT like! I could see it being popular as an urban lifestyle car, similar to the BMW Mini.
Yes, it has quite a cult following. The production vehicle is almost identical to the concept car! Much closer than anything else on the list that I recognized
Wait they actually produced this one? Nice!
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#26
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#27This predates my personal fav, the Toyota Kikai (2016)
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#28This predates my personal fav, the Toyota Kikai (2016) https://newsroom.toyota.eu/toyota-kikai/
That's awesome. Like a road version of a side by side/UTV.
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#29What seems always striking when looking at old concept cars is how many of them still have that "wow, I would totally drive that today, AND it would still look futuristic" quality. Geez car companies, show some guts. Build some of those and put them on the road. No new car today gets anyone I know excited, but some of those old photos do.
I think the Lexus LC deserves a honorable mention here: https://newsroom.lexus.eu/lexus-moves-a-mountain-to-film-the...
It definitely looks like a concept car. but you can buy it right now and at ~100k$ it's not priced like an exotic (although I wouldn't really go as far as to call it affordable).
Re: 50+ years of Japanese concept cars (2010)
#30What seems always striking when looking at old concept cars is how many of them still have that "wow, I would totally drive that today, AND it would still look futuristic" quality. Geez car companies, show some guts. Build some of those and put them on the road. No new car today gets anyone I know excited, but some of those old photos do.
I think the Lexus LC deserves a honorable mention here: https://newsroom.lexus.eu/lexus-moves-a-mountain-to-film-the... It definitely looks like a concept car. but you can buy it right now and at ~100k$ it's not priced like an exotic (although I wouldn't really go as far as to call it affordable).
looks like gigachad's face