Auto For Speed

We’ve already seen and gone over all the juicy bits of the near-production Toyota FT-86 II sports coupe, but the Japanese automaker’s social media crew went over to the firm’s European headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, for a new photo shoot last week offering us a fresh batch of pictures as well as a behind-the-scenes video.

The second iteration of the FT-86 study made its first public outing at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month. Its main purpose is to preview actual production model that will go on sale in late 2012. The well-received styling of the original concept model evolved gaining new front and rear ends, more pronounced surfaces and a host of other fresh details, with Toyota claiming that the design changes were made for safety regulations as well as for practical reasons.

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Japanese tuners sure love breaking the mold and shocking people with their creations. Revealed at the Tokyo Auto Salon, the 4509 GTR is the product of VeilSide, a Japan-based tuning firm established in 1990 by Yokomaku Hironao. It is based on a fourth generation Toyota Supra Turbo from 1993 and has received a complete makeover with the exterior design borrowing styling elements from the Bentley Continental with a hint of an Audi R8 here and there.

The body parts are made out of carbon fiber and fiberglass, while the look is completed by the new black wheels sized 20-inches up front and 22-inches at the back. The alloys are wrapped in Bridgestone Potenza rubber, 255/30R20 at the front and 295/25R22 at the rear.

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Roughly the same time when the Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition used the highly specialized Bio-Inspired Ice Vehicle for an epic Antarctic crossing, Toyota also sent a fleet of four Hilux pickup trucks to the South Pole, as part of an expedition carried out by the members of the Indian National Center for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR).

Modified by Icelandic 4×4 conversion specialist, Arctic Trucks, the Toyota completed the month-long round-trip measuring 4,600 km (2,858 miles) with the highest average speed and recorded the lowest average consumption among comparable vehicles.

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It’s easy to ooh and aah over the custom trucks on the show floor at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show. Your first thought is, “Wow, it would be really cool to add those aftermarket mods to my truck.” But then reality sets in. To make your daily driver as cool-looking as the trucks on display at the show, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and would most likely reduce your truck’s work capability.

Toyota decided that for 2011, one of the things it wanted to do was bridge that gap between SEMA irrationality and pickup truck capability. It created the T|X and T|X Pro, two new trim levels for its Tacoma. The T|X and T|X Pro came out of positive feedback from a concept Toyota Tacoma, called the TX Package, shown at SEMAin 2009. The TX had been displayed there to gauge opinion, which was so positive that the end result is the truck you see here.

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Recently, Toyota outlined its “eco-car” future, which includes the launch of 11 new or redesigned vehicles by 2012. The majority of the automaker’s upcoming vehicle introductions will be conventional hybrid versions of existing models. Toyota’s drive to increase the fuel efficiency of its model lineup does not end at hybrids, however, and the automaker is eying ways to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines. To that end, Toyota sees turbocharging, direct fuel injection and start-stop technology in its future.

Though there’s no word on which Toyota models will be first in line to get turbo’d, direct-injected or fitted with the mild hybrid treatment, reports suggest that the technology will trickle down through the model lineup – eventually reaching some of the automaker’s best-selling four-cylinder models like the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Camry. Turbocharging and direct-injection are technologies that many other automakers already employ. Toyota may be ahead in the hybrid race, but it is lagging behind much of its competition and must act fast to catch up.

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