2004 Melbourne Motor Show: Toyota Sportivo Coupe Debuts

Toyota Australia today unveiled the Sportivo Coupe, a concept car that demonstrates new styling, interior dynamics and high tech approaches to road safety.

The Sportivo Coupe introduces near horizon concepts and technologies that demonstrate Toyota Australia’s Melbourne-based design, engineering and prototyping capabilities.

Its creation included input from 14 to 18 year-olds, providing a unique insight into the personal mobility priorities of the next generation of car buyers.

Toyota Sportivo Coupe went from concept to reality in under 30 weeks. It strikes out in new directions from the X-Runner vehicle unveiled at the 2003 Melbourne Motor Show.

Built on the Toyota modular platform, the Sportivo Coupe incorporates a completely fresh approach to styling and interior dynamics.

It also presents new concepts for how we will use cars in the future and challenges century-old technology such as metal number plates.

“Toyota is very excited about this concept car and the ideas it contains,” Toyota Australia executive director sales and marketing Dave Buttner said while launching the car at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

“We wanted to develop a vehicle that was based on the locally manufactured Camry, but which focused more on younger people.

“And we wanted to display to the world the capabilities of our local Toyota designers and engineers, as well as local suppliers, and to grow their expertise.

“The Toyota Sportivo Coupe does all those things and is an absolute credit to everyone involved with the project.”

Groups of teenagers in Melbourne and Sydney attended market research clinics to provide the designers with an insight into the key influences in their lives.

Many of the electronic systems developed for the Sportivo Coupe reflect the way young people live and how they accept personal responsibility as drivers.

The conventional licence plate is replaced on Sportivo coupe with the licensed driver's I.D., the person responsible for use of the vehicle.

This allows governments and regulatory bodies the opportunity to deal directly with the person responsible for the operation of the vehicle regarding speeding fines, toll charges and even parking fines.

An innovative electronic speedometer relies on signals from speed advisory signs to display the speed limit at all times in the car, with the speedo re-configuring itself with the new limit positioned at the 12 o’clock position for instant and easy visual reference.

Mobile telephone and GPS technology enables the driver to keep in touch and meet with friends via a portable touch screen tablet.

The Sportivo Coupe was created by a young but experienced design team at Toyota Style Australia, headed by 29 year-old Nick Hogios.

Hogios and the team designed the eye-catching coupe with extensive use of glass panels and unusual dihedral doors that hinge upwards instead of outwards.

The vehicle was designed entirely by CAD (Computer Aided Design) and went straight from CAD to prototype tooling, bypassing industry-standard clay models.

Toyota's locally built 2.4-litre VVT-i engine has been turbocharged to produce around 180kW of power.

A five-speed manual gearbox was adapted from the Toyota RAV4 to suit the four wheel-drive application which is used in this vehicle.

A high performance brake package incorporating an electronic park brake was developed by PBR.

“This car is all about breaking the mould for Toyota Australia,” project manager Rob Allen said.

“We felt that, if we were going to look at younger people, we would focus on a group that was yet to emerge as car owners, but who would be influential in the future.

“We also wanted to grow the expertise of Toyota Australia engineers and designers, so it was very important to bring together the total resources of Toyota and its key suppliers to achieve a program of this complexity.”

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