What seems always striking when looking at old concept cars is how many of them still have that "wow, I would totally drive that today, AND it would still look futuristic" quality.<p>Geez car companies, show some guts. Build some of those and put them on the road. No new car today gets anyone I know excited, but some of those old photos do.
The late 2000s Mazda concepts are some of the most beautiful cars ever designed. Unfortunately the list left out my favorite, the Ryuga.<p><a href="https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1028135_mazda-ryuga-concept-breaks-cover" rel="nofollow">https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1028135_mazda-ryuga-conc...</a>
One very cool Japanese concept car that isn't in that list is the Isuzu VehiCROSS. It was built as a concept car (Isuzu VX), and then was pushed fairly quickly to production.<p>One of the choices they made to speed it to production was to uses ceramic body panel molds; quicker and easier to create than steel molds, but they wear out quicker. The life of the production and replacement parts was limited by the life of these molds.<p>The VehiCROSS, IMHO, was a pretty cool looking production car. And the concept they had for the topless version, VX-O2, was also super cool looking (aside: unlike the Nissan Murano which I loved the look of but the topless version I thought was one of the ugliest cars ever).<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_VehiCROSS" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_VehiCROSS</a>
Is it just me, or do the concepts from the 90s onwards start looking more like toys and less like useful vehicles?<p>I mean, there are exceptions like the Nissan AP-X or the Infinity Essence, but the rest doesn't look like something I'd even want to drive. Maybe that's more to do with the change from hand-drawing/photos to 3d rendering, I don't know. But 1990 is roughly where I changed from mainly "that'd be fun/interesting to drive" to mainly "I'd never want to drive that".
Reminds me very much of the early days of Japanese import cars, where you'd hear the talking point both from Japanese spokespeople and reporters, "Japan is great at copying western products".<p>Nobody says that today, do they?<p>But these concept cares are really interesting! I see a lot of cars where at first glance I clock the car as a BMW M1, or a De Tomaso Pantera. Stick a huge wing on the Daihatsu TA-X80, and you could pass it off as a cheap Zonda.
My personal favorite concept is the Toyota Setsuna: <a href="https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/concepts-time-forgot-toyota-setsuna" rel="nofollow">https://www.topgear.com/car-news/concept/concepts-time-forgo...</a>
This predates my personal fav, the Toyota Kikai (2016)<p><a href="https://newsroom.toyota.eu/toyota-kikai/" rel="nofollow">https://newsroom.toyota.eu/toyota-kikai/</a>
I'm not clicking on the link, but here is a very strange Japanese concept car that I ran across recently when I was reading about 8-wheeled vehicles:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliica" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliica</a>
Not going to lie I'd buy that Nissan Trailrunner right now. A little Rally Fighter style coupe, from a major Japanese manufacturer not particularly known for their rally prowess.
I'd not really call some of them concept cars since they are just stolen copies of Mercedes or Ferrari and other brands, does that qualify as concept?