2001 Toyota Pod Concept Car

[Oz_Stout]

Was just doing a little surfing and came across this. Have never seen or heard of it before. Apparently this was a joint Toyota and Sony project. I'm always interested in looking back at concept cars to see if any of the technology or styling ever made it into mass production vehicles.

[toyotageek]

The pod is great! I love concept cars. I always thought it was a shame that more consumers aren't more open-minded to the concept cars that the manufacturers come up with, and that the manufacturers aren't more open to actually putting the concepts into production (without redesigning them into something less innovative).

Here was the pod when I saw it at Toyota Mega Web earlier this year.


Also at Mega Web were these three Personal Mobility Vehicles - from left to right, the PM, I-Unit, and the I-Swing (see this years model, the i-REAL, below).


This year's Tokyo Motor Show is about to debut, and the boys at Jalopnik have been previewing some of the many concept cars that will be there. Here are several Toyotas.

The 1/X Concept


The RiN Concept


The Hi-CT Concept


And the least auto-like, the i-REAL Concept


All the Toyota's are fairly tame in design, for some more extreme examples, check out the Jalopnik link and take a look at the Honda PUYO, the Nissan Pivo 2 and the Yamaha Tesseract.

[Oz_Stout]

Great info TG.... thanks for that. I have always been intrigued by the concept cars. I love the Pod. You can't really tell which is the front and which is the back.

Dare I say I love the look of the Puyo too. Very smooth..... and...... I love the way the doors open. ;D

It's cool that you have a photo of the Pod. We don't get too many of the concept cars come to Australia for our Motor Shows.

[toyotageek]

Dare I say I really like the Honda PUYO and the Nissan Pivo 2! haha ~ Don't tell my Toyota friends!

We don't really get too many of the unusual Toyota (or Japanese) concepts at US auto shows either. The pictures I took were from when I was in Japan. I just wish I could go during the Tokyo Motor Show to see the wild offerings for this year. And it's not just the concept cars either, going to Japan, or any country that is not where you call home, can be an interesting automotive adventure because you get to see alll the cool (or not so cool) cars that they have! Did you know that Toyota has over 50 models/variations to choose from in Japan?!