Tokyo Reveals Less Weirdness-But Fuel Cells, Hybrids And Green Machines Aplenty.
Tokyo Goes Easy On The WeirdAuto shows have reputations, kind of like colleges and the swingin' sororities that populate them in our dreams. Detroit's show is the ratty state school filled with brash party girls from across the tracks that sleep with their teachers not for grades, but for fun. Or, at least we and hundreds of grad students hope so.
In contrast, the Tokyo show is a tiny liberal arts school in the northeast, where the hot date is the weird chick that listens to Sonic Youth and hands out flyers asking you to wear your underwear twice so the hole over the ozone layer won't get any bigger. Tokyo is where you'll find concept cars that squeeze room for four behind a fuel-cell stack while the gauges project on the headliner. Fun to drive? Heck, most of the cars at Tokyo are just fun to point at and laugh.
And yet this year's Tokyo show was a little less weird than usual. Maybe it's the perennial recession sticking it to the Japanese's sense of wacky fun. Or maybe it's the increasing globalization that's making esoteric concepts less acceptable to masters in Stuttgart or Detroit, not to mention Tokyo itself.
Mind you, Tokyo the city always provides a giggle or two, and it's not always caused by asphyxiation-inducing traffic. The best from the 2003 Tokyo Show follows, from Asia's biggest brands to its smallest:
ToyotaPM (Personal Mobility)Toyota's fascination with pod shapes hasn't yet affected the Camry, but the company led off the weirdness in its Tokyo display with the PM-a clever acronym for "Personal Mobility." Toyota suggests you wear this car rather than drive it, which works out fine until you return it to Target because it's the wrong size and they deny your $150,000 refund (it's a concept, after all, not a freakin' Corolla). They think this is the future of urban commuting, and they're so certain of the idea, they outfitted it with electronic shocks that raise and lower the car for all sorts of duties, including dropping you at perfect curb height. Honestly, some cars will do anything to win your love. It's kind of Joe Millionaire desperate if you ask us.
Lexus LF-SIf you really expect Lexus to start selling this hot four-door anytime soon, you haven't been paying attention here (or at work either, so knock it off with the porn downloading before the boss sees you). The LF-S, though, is the way Lexus would like some of its future vehicles to look. And under the hood is the wave of the future for some lucky luxo vehicle: you can bet Toyota will be the first company to build a gas-electric hybrid luxosedan, and the LF-S' hybrid powertrain twins a V8 with a battery pack for superior performance. Nothing was mentioned about an in-dash pizza oven, but we thought it smelled kind of like a half-mushroom thin crust.