Toyota FT-HS Concept Gallery
The latest here on DrivingEnthusiast: a new gallery of 96 high-res images of the Toyota FT-HS Concept from 2007!
FT means “Future Technology” and HS stands for “Hybrid Synergy”. The FT-HS is a concept of a 370Z-sized gas/electric hybrid.
Our new gallery has everything from action shots set on public roads:
to images of the wild interior:
to evolutionary concept drawings straight from the design studios:
The FT-HS is a pure concept, not built on a production car or prototype platform. As a concept, certain shapes and features are wildly speculative and impractical. Nonetheless, the concept was intended as one possible interpretation of what a future Supra might look like, and especially how it would be powered. The FT-HS is powered by a gas/electric hybrid, with a 3.5 liter DOHC V-6 coupled to an electric hybrid drive (similar to the design used by Lexus on it’s high end models) yielding 400 horsepower total.
Unusual and innovative features abound, from an impractical sliding/drop roof:
to an interior driver-centric design concept labelled ”Solo Space ”:
Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, first hinted about an all-new Supra in this interview.
AutoWeek believed that it would go into production in the summer of 2009… but of course the economy and other issues at Toyota got in the way. As well as issues around the battery technology. Because of these issues, Toyota will start at the lower end of the market, with the FT-86 concept, which has been approved for production. And, while the FT-86 concept has often been referred to as the prototype for a new Celica, it appears that it will be sold as a Scion instead (a move that has not at all been well received from potential buyers – in fact this writer believes it to be an unbelievably bad decision given the rich and long history of the Celica brand). We also know that Toyota has been working with a hybrid MR-2/MR-S type of car, and from spy shots of that prototype, it would appear to be a near-term production candidate as well.
So if we do see a new Supra, and if it is based on the FT-HS concept, given the more immediate issues at Toyota it would probably be 4-5 years out. But we know that the appreciation of performance cars is alive and well in Akio Toyoda, and that creativity at Toyota is certainly not dead, as evidenced by the FT-HS and FT-86. We want to see Toyota get thru the quality questions, then use ecologically-responsible performance cars to revitalize the image of Toyota.