Space Shuttle!

It was Star Wars all over again for me when i saw this! Imagine strapping your self in this car to get to work! At first look, this is what springs to mind, 'Is it a space shuttle on wheels?'. The very compact design, the vast amount of glass that surrounds the whole car and those lovely butterfly doors makes this look very much like a little space ship for the street. 

I uploaded this picture on my Facebook wall and i was shocked to know that not many people knew what this car was. 

So i thought i will take the opportunity to explain to everyone out there what this car is all about. Namely it is a Toyota Sera. Yes guys a Toyota! 

The Toyota Sera was launched in 1990 and manufactured until 1996. The concept car looks are present because they were taken off the almost production ready AXV II Concept car released in 1988. According to sources the word 'Sera' means 'will be' in French.

If you look around the whole car its full of innovative ideas. For example the rear tail lights actually fade from red to black to form the rear garnish. Really dig the Japanese style number plates on this car!

As JDM goes this is the best you can get. This car was solely manufactured for the Japanese market only, but luckily it has crept into a few lucky countries like ours. They say that only about 16000 of these exist in the whole world. Keen eyes will notice the front mount inter cooler, more on that later.

 I expected this car to be bigger, but when you see it in person you realize how compact it is. 

 Open Sesame! Gotta love those doors!

 The outside of the car has been kept stock, but under the hood its been tweaked greatly. 

 Some K&N appreciation here.....

 The little interior too greatly emphasizes the space ship feeling. You really sit deep down in those bucket seats and the swoopy dash envelopes you. The A pillar is so far in that the auxiliary gauges are almost in your face! 

Visibility is not an issue on this car. Even though in dimensions its quite minimal the glass enclosed space makes it feel very spacious. 

 It had some retro dials too! 

WARP SPEED AHEAD! Now to the most interesting bit of the car. The 5E FHE motor has been given a heavy dose of WEPR treatment! Includes the TD 04 Turbo charger, with a Trust front mount inter-cooler, race exhaust manifold, screamer piper, aluminium radiator, Blow off valve and to control it all a Haltech ECU. Therefore making it perform like a space ship too! 

 And to keep it on the road some D2 front suspension (adjustable) has been bolted on too. 

Never expected Toyota to come up with such a car eh? Im guessing everyone is so used to the boring cars they make, its a bit hard to fathom how they could come up with such a thing! This is another one of those crazy 90's cars that came out in an age where looking futuristic was hip and cool! With some tasteful mods it makes this car one very unique ride! 

A big Thank You to Yasas Wikramanayake for taking time off to let me shoot his car. Another all round nice guy that has helped Octane Heads a lot. Thanks again, and hope you guys enjoyed this. 

By Charith Kulasiri 

Comments

  1. Starwars X wing fighter ;)

    Saw this car @ Dyno tuning place, what a power output..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really nice photos.

    ReplyDelete

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