Toyota calls this all-wooden roadster concept a 'time machine'
Toyota's Setsuna concept is more than an all-wood roadster concept. The Japanese automaker claims it's a time machine, too.
No, that doesn't mean that it can travel through time. I mean, it does, but just like how you and I time travel: forward, one minute at a time.
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Its real time-machine capabilities come in the form of a wooden body that ages through time as well as a 100-year meter in the dashboard that ticks off every hour, day and year that Setsuna has been on the planet.
The idea is that families who connect with the car will make memories in and around it. The clicking of the 100-year meter as well as the visible aging of the car is aimed to remind family members, as the car is passed down through the generations, of the significance the automobile has in their family.
Setsuna has been designed with both a fully wooden frame as well as replaceable wooden exterior body panels, which age and wear differently. This adds to the patchwork heirloom feel of the vehicle as well as its ability to be repaired overtime.
Toyota designed and built Setsuna for Milan Design Week that runs April 12 through 17.
If you ask me, though, I think that more than simply a design concept, Setsuna works to remind people that cars used to be more than an appliance. They were a durable that could be owned and cherished by a family for years.
Although this is a strange way to impart that message, I applaud it because it's exactly how I feel about cars.
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Topics Cars
