Dan Strong's Column

	Wahei Hirai is arguably the most influential designer on the planet....and he's about to start flexing his muscles

What do sea urchins and Toyota’s latest cars have in common? Not much, you might think, but Wahei Hirai is on a mission to describe why one day they could be closely related. His business card offers few clues, describing him simply as a Managing Officer, but he is arguably the most powerful car designer on the planet. And he’s about to start flexing his muscles. As chief stylist at the Toyota Motor Corporation, Hirai aims to add some much needed vibrancy to the firm’s often lacklustre designs.

The big question is how to do that while ensuring a Toyota still looks like a Toyota – a challenge made all the harder by the manufacturer’s vast size. It’s reckoned the firm sold more than seven million vehicles last year, and is currently building more than 130 different kinds of motor. To put that into perspective, it’s also thought that the gigantic firm offers more cars with names which begin with the letter C than Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen do across their entire combined model ranges.

Clearly, with such huge volume to consider, any sort of design language has to be simple. As a result, Hirai is turning to nature and, in a busy meeting room on the marque’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show, he described how that would work.

“Toyotas of the future,” he said, “must have the J-Factor, where J stands for Japan. We must have a design philosophy. Unlike some European car builders, we do not need strong shapes and sharp lines to communicate the J-Factor, but we must have design harmony and strong rules. We will look to nature for our inspiration, and use perspective and proportion to bring unity. When you see any Toyota, you will recognise its shape immediately.”

With that, Hirai produced a book and opened it at a page full of images of sea shells. He described how the spiral twist inside each one represented both nature and mathematical simplicity. Apparently, the shape of the twist
can be explained by a fairly simple equation, as it is both constant and even.

As well as being relevant to sea creatures, the equation has been used to define the curving line that runs down the bonnet of the firm’s iQ urban car. And if the shape reminds you of another Toyota, take a look at the FT-HS hybrid sports car concept. It’s the same.

Maths will also be used to harmonise the iQ’s surfacing – and to fix proportion. Lexus has set the precedent – according to Hirai, the distance between the centre of the front wheel and the bottom of the windscreen pillar is roughly the same for the IS, GS and even LS. So when you see all three in profile, you are instantly reminded of the brand’s other cars, without the need for lots of obvious detailing which, Hirai hints, may not be appropriate for luxury models.

It’s going to be the same for Toyota’s new cars. To demonstrate, head-on pictures of the Prius and its 2010 replacement are produced. When the two are overlaid, the dimensions are virtually identical, even though the designs are very different. Of course, such clever philosophies are impressive, but do they really work? For me, the question was answered, right on cue, as I left the meeting.

This was just as the production iQ was being unveiled. There, on the front of the car, was the curving line described by Hirai. Squinting at it, I did get a kind of déjà vu as my mind recalled other Toyota cars. That’s important for the future, as it helps to define and reinforce the brand values which have already propelled the firm to within a whisker of becoming the planet’s biggest car builder. If Hirai can steer a safe course and implement his plan, that title is more than within easy reach – it’s a mere formality.