Such curiosities as an MX-2, which could have been an Acura NSX rival, see the light of day as Toyota celebrates 50 years of its California design center.
This month, Toyota's California design studio, Calty, celebrates its 50th anniversary. By way of marking the occasion, Toyota is showing off some of the concepts that never made it outside of the studio, including a mid-engine halo sports car called the MX-2. A could-have-been rival to Acura's NSX? World Market Table
Calty, which takes its name as a portmanteau of California and Toyota, was the first U.S.-based design studio for a Japanese automaker. It was always a pretty stealthy operation, intended to allow for the kind of creative freedom that might not be possible back in Japan, with cost-obsessed executives peeking over shoulders. First in El Segundo, and later in Newport Beach, CALTY was a place where designers could dream without limits.
Shown as a 1/5 scale model in a photo with Toyota's then-president, Eiji Toyoda, it hints at a future where SUVs would be all the rage. Toyoda stepped down in 1982, and this concept didn't make it to production, but there's a bit of original three-door RAV4 to its front end.
The MX-2 looks pure 1990s supercar concept, with curving lines, forward-hinged gullwing doors, and a liftable rear canopy. There's a mix of McLaren F1 and Jaguar XJ220 here—but the MX-2 dates back to 1983. At the time, Toyota was building the wedgy first generation MR2 as a production mid-engine car, but the MX-2 hinted at what the future might have held. Imagine a roadgoing version of one of Toyota's Group C racers of the late 1980s.
Instead Calty gave us the 1989 Celica and the 1990 Previa. Admittedly, for pragmatic everyday cars, those were pretty daring designs. Even better, Calty would eventually design the 2006 FJ Cruiser, bringing the charms of the round-headlight vintage Land Cruiser to a modern age.
More tantalizing is the MX-2 concept and its gullwing doors (top). This was a followup to the MX-1 shown here, also a Calty design, which was built as a full-scale model with scissor doors and a glass-intensive cockpit that looks strikingly similar to the first-generation NSX.
It's also not hard to see elements of the current Supra in Calty's 1990s take on what the fourth-generation Supra might have looked like. The current Supra was designed here in California, as is much of Toyota's current range, including the Crown, Tacoma, and Grand Highlander.
Toyota capped off its Calty celebration with the reveal of this Baby Lunar Cruiser, a Land Cruiser of the future inspired by the classic FJ40.
This 2012 concept aside, you have to think that, tucked away in some part of the studio with no windows for the public to peek in, Calty's designers are working on some modern followup to the MX-1 and MX-2. Something sleek, all-electric or hybridized, a high-tech riposte to McLarens and Ferraris. Which might not ever make enough financial sense to see the light of day. But this is California, where the dreaming gets done.
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