Toyota SUVs go "casual core"

Toyota’s wild FT-4X concept raised eyebrows as the first global premiere of the 2017 New York motor show.

The FJ inspired softroader features a striking design with bold flourishes, GoPro cameras embedded in its wing mirrors, heated and cooled lockers in the boot and a power plug on the roof.

The boot can be opened barn-door style or vertically like most tailgates and an internal armrest that doubles as a sleeping bag is also a pretty neat feature.

But there's no sign of lockable axle hubs, low-range transfer cases or deep water snorkels.

Toyota has dubbed the vehicle "casual core" as opposed to hard core. It posits middling off-road ability, which will make a production version more affordable and appealing to younger buyers (primarily millennials) who want to get outdoors but don't want to tackle tracks that'll rip the bumpers clean off.

Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota's North American design studio, Calty Design Research, said the company had a mandate to deliver more daring designs now. He’s therefore "optimistic" of the car's chance of becoming an affordable production vehicle – especially given that it's based on the same Toyota next generation architecture (TNGA) as the C-HR compact SUV.

"We designed it to be built on the C-platform, which is a good size. It's all doable. A lot of this car is doable; again it depends on the [consumer] reaction.

"Because it's based on the C-HR platform we envisage this to be an affordable vehicle -- it's not super high end. This is only the beginning, so we're going to show it to everybody and gauge reaction... If we get a really positive response, it can grease the wheels and get things moving," added Hunter.

Concept to reality
The Toyota C-HR is one of the wildest designs the Japanese company has ever deployed in dealerships and it didn't change much from concept to production car.

Would the company be so bold as to do the same with this Californian creation?

It's almost a compact Jeep Wrangler – but with the added bonuses of Toyota's reliability and loads of unique features and tech. Take the mobile phone integration for instance. There's a cradle located just above the instrument cluster and even a power point in the roof for quick-charging devices without having to open the vehicle.

One of the designers who worked on the Toyota FT-4X project was Andrew MacLachlan, a New Zealander who concurred with his boss's positive sentiment of getting the vehicle from concept fantasy to showroom reality.

"That's always the dream," he said.

"We'd love to see it [become a production reality]. Kevin is right, size-wise it is right and I think the demand is there for something like that. I'd love to see it on the road."

MacLachlan pointed out that fanciful creations from the Californian design studio have made the transition to customer-ready production cars, such as the Lexus LC.

"Calty has done a few other concepts and production cars recently, including the LF-LC, a Lexus. It was a blue-sky design for us. It had passion and a great reaction from the press, public and dealers, so it hit the right chord and it went through to production," MacLachlan said.

He said something like the FT-4X would also be popular in emerging markets such as Brazil, and given Hunter’s comments on the car's affordability, the vehicle could even become a global model for the Big T brand.

"I spent time down in Brazil and it's the sort of product that could handle the crazy roads they have there. You can't drive in something too big either. You could survive in the city and get away if you wanted to and yeah sure in NZ too, why not!" he said.