A home run or a dream, come true? To its
designers, the 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser is both those things, and more. To Kevin
Hunter, vice president of Calty Design Research, the California-based Toyota
design studio in which the FJ Cruiser concept vehicle was born, it's a home
run. For Jin Kim, who designed the vehicle's exterior, it's a dream come true.
But perhaps most importantly, it's a steel-and-glass statement of Toyota's commitment
to great design.
With the FJ Cruiser, Toyota seemingly accomplished the impossible: It captured
and distilled the essence of an iconic, 40-year-old vehicle, the classic Toyota
Land Cruiser FJ40. Then it poured that essence into an all-new design without
making that new design a retrospective restatement of the original. It reprised
several of the FJ40's most compelling stylistic themes, but did so in ways that
are completely contemporary and fresh. And that was exactly what Hunter, Kim
and interior designer Bill Chergosky all had in mind.
The challenge, first posed in early 2002 by executives from Toyota Motor Sales,
was simple: Design a show vehicle that targeted young buyers and that offered
a rugged, functional look recalling the classic Land Cruiser and its heritage.
Kim and two other designers were asked by Hunter to research some ideas. Whoever
came up with the most intriguing idea would be assigned the final concept-vehicle
design project.
Kim's research pointed him toward the FJ40. "The more I got into it, the
clearer it was to me that this was what Toyota was looking for," said Kim.
"The design is charming. It has nice volume and a good stance. It's kind
of boxy and very rugged. I learned that there are still a lot of people who
are FJ40 fanatics, so I decided to go in the FJ40 direction."
Yet the need was for something new, not something old. Said Kim, "I wanted
to make sure I didn't take the design in a retro direction. I wanted to do something
very new and modern, but with a sense of the FJ40 to show the heritage of it,
not just a literal FJ40 re-do."
Kim, 28, a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California,
chose as his starting point the vehicle's overall image. The look he was after,
he said, was what he called "industrial modern." He explained, "To
me, that means tool-like, a combination of ruggedness and functionality, with
an honest look and modern surfaces."
Kim's initial sketches explored a number of variations on Land Cruiser themes.
As he progressed, he got a clearer idea of what the final vehicle could look
like – a process that included thinking about the elements that made the
FJ40 a memorable design.
He settled on the FJ40's two round headlights set on either side of a mesh
grille, and mounted within a grille surround element: its upright windshield,
its white top and its wrap-around rear-corner glass.
"I tried to interpret those in a modern way that's not literal but has
the same feeling," Kim explained, and added, "I think that just looking
at the grille/headlight treatment and the white roof makes an immediate connection
to FJ40, even though the final FJ Cruiser design uses totally different proportions
and construction."
Kim added, "The proportion I wanted to express was rugged, leaning forward
in an aggressive gesture. I was able to achieve that by using a wedged roofline
and a short overhang. Combining those two gave it a forward-leaning posture.
The surfaces are flat. It has a nice tension and a nice volume. It's not organic,
but at the same time it feels very muscular."
Hunter, a graduate of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, liked what
he saw. "We knew this concept was going to be some kind of Land Cruiser
vehicle, but we weren't sure which one," said Hunter. "The sketches
that Jin presented communicated, in a very modern way, the essence of the FJ40.
We could feel it immediately when we saw the sketches. Sketches from the other
designers were nice designs, but they didn't connect to the past in a way we
thought was interesting. We felt that Jin's design was the best of both worlds."
Kim's sketches may indeed have been the best of past and present, but a design
sketch is a universe away from a real-world design that can be translated into
a full-size model of the proposed concept vehicle. So Kim's initial sketch underwent
a process of refinement.
"Once we decided on a theme, there were a series of management reviews
to improve and develop the design," said Hunter. "We did a lot of
proportional tuning. We looked at the cab and body ratios and the windshield
angles. We experimented with a lot of different things. In the end, it was really
a compelling design with a lot of charm and character. It communicated an honest,
purposeful function that was easy to understand in an emotional way. I think
we had a clear philosophy from the beginning about what we wanted it to be.
We stuck to that. I don't feel we compromised anything along the way."
While Kim was working on the exterior design, Bill Chergosky, 35, also a graduate
of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, was tasked with coming up with
an interior for the project. Like Kim, he also was thinking in terms of tools.
"A hammer is a great metaphor for the way the interior of the FJ40 is
constructed," said Chergosky. "A hammer looks the way it does because
it has to drive a nail. When I sat down to design this interior, I looked at
the FJ40's interior. It's a product of manufacturing. One of the style elements
is purity - there is no styling. It's composed of a big metal tub, some pieces
of Masonite wrapped in vinyl and an instrument panel jammed right up against
the firewall. I wanted to convey a similar charm. That's the design intent filtered
through the engineering process. It is what it is. It's like a tool."
Chergosky's intent was to work from that philosophy, but with modern design
tools and manufacturering processes. That meant using a computer instead of
a pencil and sketchpad, and it also meant altering his workflow.
"Usually, designers create a shape and then design a process that will
produce that shape," said Chergosky. "But this time, I wanted the
components, the architecture, to be somewhat process-driven. I wanted the components
to be extrusions, castings and CNC-milled pieces. Setting out with a production
and assembly process probably is how they did the original FJ40. They created
a style, something magical, out of that."
The process of creating something magical this time around was helped by Toyota's
recently enunciated design philosophy. That philosophy is stated by the phrase,
"vibrant clarity."
Hunter explained, "We're all trying to communicate this. By vibrancy,
we mean energetic and active. Clarity is something that is honestly communicated.
It's easy to understand why it's here, what it's meant to do. That's what we're
trying to capture."
With this design philosophy as a guide, the final tuning of the concept's design
was completed and Kim began building a full-size model.
"When it was all done and painted, we presented it to the executives at
Toyota Motor Sales, said Hunter. "It was stunning. We all felt that this
was going to be a true winner. Sometimes you're not fully satisfied and you
think, ‘It's too bad we didn't do this or that.' But this was one of those
projects where you just felt this was a great design."
Hunter, Kim and Chergosky were sure that they were on the right design path,
but none of them was prepared for the reception the FJ Cruiser concept vehicle
got at the 2003 North American International Automobile Show in Detroit.
The FJ Cruiser's unveiling took place toward the end of the show's media days.
When the coverings were lifted from the glowing blue-and-white FJ Cruiser, it
was clear that Hunter and his team had a hit on their hands.
Hunter said of the unveiling, "It was a home run - not only according
to the media, from whom we heard a lot of positive things, but also according
to our design colleagues, who came up and complimented us. The FJ Cruiser was
understandable. You didn't have to explain that vehicle to anyone. Everyone
knew instantly what it was. It was amazing to see people's response to it. The
fact that it was connected to the FJ40 completed it as a home-run statement."
Kim recalls, "When I saw what a success it was, I was blown away. The
response it got was very satisfying. A lot of times after you spend time designing
something, you've been looking at it so long you don't know how it will be received
by those who've not seen it. At a certain stage you start to wonder about the
design. So it was very satisfying to see that other people had positive reactions.
It was a dream come true."
Concept cars are flights of artistic fantasy, vehicles in which ideas count
more than practicality does, in which impact and artistic expression trump production
concerns. So it is perhaps understandable that the FJ Cruiser's designers expected
that their interior and exterior designs, so carefully plotted, might be victimized
by the exigencies and realities of production, and by the process of engineering
a real-world vehicle from something intended only for the world of show. Yet
the FJ Cruiser was put into production in a form that is almost completely unchanged
from that of the concept vehicle.
There is a solid reason for that, according to Hunter. He said, "I think
there was a strong commitment from the chief engineer to this concept vehicle's
design. The best designs come about when design and engineering work together.
That's what we're trying to do at Toyota. We're trying to expand our design
vocabulary, to do more emotional design."
"The engineers really outdid themselves," said Kim. "Often, because
of issues related to cost, packaging or visibility, production vehicles lose
some of the concept vehicle's design touches. There were things I thought would
go away with this one, but the engineers managed to keep most of the design
elements. I thought, for instance, that the first things they would get rid
of were the indicator lamps in the side-view mirrors. But they kept even those."
At the end of the day, the FJ Cruiser is much more than merely a successful
design exercise that made it into production. It also is a clear statement of
how Toyota's design philosophy can be turned into hard metal.
Explained Hunter, "Vibrant clarity helps us to solidify the way we are
thinking about design. Translating it visually is often difficult, so it helps
to have an example to use as a benchmark. The FJ Cruiser is just such a benchmark."
Hunter added, "What is significant about the FJ Cruiser project is that
working together, we created a concept car that was widely recognized for its
excellence. It then became a production car. This marks the first time at Calty
we've taken a concept right to production. So I think that's a testament to
a strong commitment to design, to understanding its importance, and to people
working together."
