Toyota FT-HS – The futures so bright

Change has always been something that we as humans have feared in varying degrees. The more we adapt to constant change the more our endeavours speed it up through ever improving technology.

I for one have been laughing off the world’s rapidly increasing ecologically sound obsession with the Hybrid car. I have always seen the Toyota Prius as a breath of only half polluted air for people who don’t enjoy driving and like to walk aimlessly around wilderness areas on their weekends. To me it was the kiss of death to everything I held dear about cars…the beginning of the end.

Toyota FT-HS Hybrid supercar. Notice how the grass looks so much greener as it drives by. It's all that fresh air.

No more noise, no more excitement and no more charismatic petrol powered piston engines. Instead we are left with just a low hum and slight vibration as some anaemic but frugal little engine kicks in to assist the batteries. It all has that feeling of sitting in a silent hospital room waiting for someone to die.

Toyota may have fathered the Prius and automotive orgasms like the Corolla and Camry but it also appears that they still have an imagination and have proven that they do have a human side. Yes, it looks like the boffins at Toyota still drink Sake and smoke like trains just like normal people in Japan…and they still like their cars.

If the Toyota FT-HS becomes a production reality I hope the interior doesn't

Toyota’s design boffins were given one goal and that was to create a sports car that was suitable for the 21st Century. Their creation is the Toyota FT-HS petrol-electric supercar. FT-HS stands for Future Toyota Hybrid Sports and Toyota admit that there is nothing of significance on this car that couldn’t be put into production.

This is no wimpy hybrid. Its 3.5-litre V6 has been tuned to develop a handy 300kW’s and Toyota claim a projected 0-100km/h somewhere in the four second bracket. The designers have noted that the instant torque available with electric motors makes them perfect for use in a supercar type application.

To look at the Toyota FT-HS is best described as interesting. If you try ignoring the front and the rear the side actually looks quite provocative. Try squinting and adding a bit of blur and it all looks better again. It was designed at Toyota’s California design centre and it does get very hot there.

Toyota has Porsche and Ferrari in its sights with the FT-HS and whilst the car is currently a concept and made from exotic materials like carbon fibre they estimate that a steel bodied production car would weight in at around 1600kg. Not bad for a Hybrid with its electric motor and batteries although the FT-HS is fractionally smaller dimensionally than a 911 coupe.

Production may actually be a reality. Toyota has sold over three-quarters of a million hybrids, knows they work and knows the market better than any other manufacturer. It is believed that the FT-HS is being considered for production...possibly.

I’ll stick to piston engine performance cars for now but the future doesn’t look so bleak…a bit Buck Rogered but not bleak.