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Hold On, Toyota Will Come With More Crazy Designs

Toyota is on the way to redeem itself from the bland automaker making reliable fridges on wheels and one of its strategies is coming up with striking designs. After all, that’s what most buyers are looking for now besides reliability, so why not both?
Toyota FT-1 Concept 1 photo
Photo: Toyota
Honestly, Toyota blew our minds with the new FT-1 concept when it was unveiled at the North American International Auto Show this year. The automaker didn’t release any sort of teaser prior to the big reveal so the shock was even bigger. No one expected that Toyota (excluding Lexus) could have such a beautifully shaped car, even if its just a concept.

And that is not all, because Toyota said it will continue to come up with “more risky designs” like what we saw on the FT-1, as Toyota Europe executive vice president told AutoExpress recently.

"Toyota has really changed under Akio Toyoda [Toyota CEO] – he really doesn’t care about selling more cars than anyone else, in fact he’s paranoid about growing too quickly,” Schlicht said. “He’s told everyone in the company not to chase the number one spot, but to do things right, make the best cars and the money will come.”

The big rapture came when the company made the Lexus LFA happen. Akio Toyoda wanted its engineers and designers’ minds to become free and come with original designs and functionalities.

Then came the FT-86 concept that spawned the Toyota GT 86 entry level sports coupe, which lets be honest, looks amazing for the money. The list can continues with other concepts like the FT-Bh, FCV and i-Road, which haven’t spawned a production version yet.

And let’s not forget about Toyota’s last year biggest change - the 2014 Corolla which is finally a stylish compact sedan that exited the obscurity through adopting Toyota’s new Keen Look and Under Priority design language.

Currently we are waiting for the new generation Toyota Aygo to be unveiled. Its PSA siblings have already shed their cammo appearing to be pretty interesting. But looking at Toyota’s teaser for the Aygo, it may be probably the best looking out of the three sister superminis.

“If Akio wasn’t CEO then our products would still be bland, but they’re not because he’s prepared to make a mistake. If 30 per cent of people don’t like a car we produce then that’s fine, we’re only after between five and ten per cent market share,” Schlicht explained.
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