The wooden Toyota Setsuna lumbers into Milan Design Week

The Toyota Setsuna concept's flowing lines and classic shape should fit in perfectly during the public debut at Milan Design Week in April. While the vehicle is aesthetically beautiful, the even more magnificent thing about it is the craftsmanship that's necessary to create this nautical shape. Rather than traditional automotive materials like steel or even cutting edge parts like carbon fiber, the Setsuna is predominantly made of wood.

Kenji Tsuji, who oversees the project, and his teams used a technique called okuriari to join the parts without using nails or screws. The Setsuna features Japanese cedar for the exterior panels and Japanese birch for the frame. The crew also makes the floor and seats from wood. We look forward to seeing better photos of the concept when it debuts in Italy because Toyota's single shot doesn't show all these details.

According to Forbes, the Setsuna is drivable, albeit not very far. It reportedly uses six lead-acid batteries that give the vehicle a total range of about 16 miles and allows the electric motor to accelerate the roadster to 28 miles per hour. The Setsuna definitely won't win a race against the Cedar Rocket log drag racer, though.

Tsuji wants the roadster to slowly change over time in a similar way our relationship with a car morphs as we live with it. "We would also like the viewer to imagine how the Setsuna will gradually develop a complex and unique character over the years," he said. A 100-year meter inside keeps track as that time ticks by. Show full PR text Toyota to Debut the Setsuna Concept Car at Milan Design Week

Toyota City, Japan, March 4, 2016?Next month, Toyota will make a fittingly stylish first appearance at Milan Design Week1 by debuting the Setsuna, an attractive new concept car made primarily of wood.

Setsuna

The decision to use wood?a material that is durable yet prone to change over time?reflects Toyota's efforts to give form to the developing relationships between people and their cars. The Setsuna symbolizes how cars undergo a gradual transformation over the years, as if absorbing the aspirations, memories, and emotions of multiple generations of a family. With the Setsuna concept, Toyota is expressing the notion that, as a family accrues time and experiences together with their car, lovingly caring for it and passing it on to the next generation, that car will acquire a new type of value that only the members of that family can appreciate.

The car's name?Setsuna, meaning "moment" in Japanese?was chosen to reflect that people experience precious, fleeting moments together with their cars. Toyota believes that, over time, these collective moments make their cars irreplaceable to their owners.

To embody this concept, Toyota picked a variety of distinctive types of wood for different parts of the car, including the exterior panels2, frame, floor, and seats. Wood provides uniquely appealing characteristics that are not offered in conventional cars: it can last for many generations if properly taken care of and it also changes in coloration and texture in response to its environment (particularly temperature and humidity) and conditions of use, taking on a unique character and depth.

Kenji Tsuji, the Toyota engineer overseeing development of the Setsuna, said of his process: "We evaluated various ways to express the concept and selected different lumber materials for specific applications, such as Japanese cedar for the exterior panels and Japanese birch for the frame. We also paid particular attention to the sizes and arrangements of individual parts. For the assembly structure, we adopted a traditional Japanese joinery technique called okuriari3 which does not use any nails or screws. The completed body line of the Setsuna expresses a beautiful curve reminiscent of a boat. We would also like the viewer to imagine how the Setsuna will gradually develop a complex and unique character over the years. The car includes a 100-year meter that will keep time over generations, and seats that combine functional beauty with the gentle hue of the wood." Main specifications Overall length Overall width Overall height Wheelbase Seating capacity Powertrain 3,030 mm 1,480 mm 970 mm 1,700 mm 2 Electric motor Outline of Toyota exhibition at Milan Design Week Duration Media dayApril 11 (11:00 - 18:00)
Public daysApril 12 - 17 (11:00 - 21:00) Venue Via Tortona 31, Milan
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