Calty Design Research Incorporated (also simply known as Calty) is a

Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...

design studio established in 1973. They have two facilities: one in

Newport Beach, California Newport Beach is a coastal city of about 85,000 in southern Orange County, California, United States. Located about southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Newport Beach is known for its sandy beaches. The city's harbor once supported maritime indu ...

for concept designs, and another in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the List of municipalities in Michigan, fifth-most populous cit ...

for production designs. Calty provides both interior and exterior styling proposals for future Toyota vehicles and advanced design, production color and wheel design concepts for Toyota's product development operations. Calty was initially created by Noritsuna Watanabe and David Stollery in 1973 at

El Segundo, California El Segundo ( , ; ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located on Santa Monica Bay, it was incorporated on January 18, 1917, and is part of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments. The population was 17,272 as of t ...

. In 1976, Toyota sent Kazuo Morohoshi to rebuild the design center into a much stronger entity. Morohoshi was an assistant manager in Toyota who had recent completed work on the third generation Corolla and the Tercel and Corsa. His task was to build a long term design center in America to cater for American tastes and styles rather than catering to Japanese tastes and styles. Morohoshi had to develop both the direction for the new center and physical realities such as selecting the building, fitting it out and hiring staff. He choose to staff it with Americans, even though there were often cultural misunderstandings between himself and the American staff for a while. After one year under Morohoshi's management, Calty started working on the second generation Celica, aimed at the American market. American sales soon picked up as a result of the styling being aim at American tastes. With the aid of design consultant and longtime Art Center faculty member

Strother MacMinn Strother MacMinn (1918 – January 19, 1998) was an American car designer, author, and educator. While noted for his contributions to Road & Track, Motor Trend, and Automobile Quarterly and for helping found Toyota's Calty Design Research studio ...

, pure research was also undertaken in the form of concept cars. These paved the way for features incorporated into future Toyota cars. Feedback about the concept cars also allowed Toyota to gauge how American audiences perceived styling issues, which were often different from how the Japanese perceived them. Morohoshi was called back to Japan in 1983 to head up Advanced Design at the Nagoya Design Division in Japan. The building he choose for Calty in Newport Beach is still being used by Calty. When Toyota decided to build a luxury car (the Lexus LS400), it was aimed at the 43 year old white American male earning $100,000 per year (in 1987 dollars). A team of Japanese designers was sent to California to discover what this demographic looked for in a car and how it reflected their lifestyle. This team worked closely with Calty. As representatives of the target market, Calty was also involved in the exterior and interior design. However, Calty's sporty designs came into conflict with executives in Japan, who favored a more conservative car that appealed to middle-aged Japanese executives. Calty was also involved with the design of the new Lexus dealerships and the early training of these new dealers. Toyota's design centers around the world often participated together to design new cars. For example, in February 1996 there was a competition among the design centers for the design of the first generation

Prius The is a Compact car, compact/small family car, small family liftback (supermini/subcompact sedan (car), sedan until 2003) produced by Toyota. The Prius has a Hybrid vehicle drivetrain, hybrid drivetrain, combined with an internal combustion ...

. The Calty design was chosen, although the detailed work to turn it into a production car was done by Development Center 2 in Japan. Here is a time line (model years) and list of vehicles Calty has contributed to: * 2025

Toyota 4Runner The Toyota 4Runner is an SUV manufactured by the Japanese automaker Toyota and marketed globally since 1984, across six generations. In Japan, it was marketed as the and was withdrawn from the market in 2009. The original 4Runner was a comp ...

* 2024

Toyota Land Cruiser The , also sometimes spelt as LandCruiser, is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. , the sales of the Land Cruiser totalled more than 1 ...

*2018

Toyota Camry The Toyota Camry (; Japanese: トヨタ・カムリ ''Toyota Kamuri'') is an automobile sold internationally by the Japanese auto manufacturer Toyota since 1982, spanning multiple generations. Originally compact in size (narrow-body), the Cam ...

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

*2018 Toyota Camry (XV70) *2015

*2014

Toyota FT-1 is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, producing ...

concept *2013

Toyota Avalon The is a full-size car, full-size Sedan (automobile), sedan manufactured by Toyota, as its largest front-wheel drive sedan; also its flagship in the United States, Canada, China and the Middle East. The Avalon was also manufactured in Australi ...

*2013

*2013 Lexus GS interior *2011

Scion tC The Scion tC is a compact car manufactured by Toyota under its Scion brand from 2004 to 2016 over two generations: ANT10 (2004–2010) and AGT20 (2011–2016). Both generations were built in Japan. The tC was introduced first in the United State ...

*2011

Toyota Sienna The Toyota Sienna is a minivan manufactured and marketed by Toyota primarily for the North American market. It is named for the Italian city of Siena, in the region of Tuscany. It replaced the first generation Toyota Previa, Previa van in 1997 ...

*2009 Toyota Venza *2008

Toyota Highlander The Toyota Highlander, also known as the , is a mid-size crossover SUV with three-row seating produced by Toyota since 2000. Announced in April 2000 at the New York International Auto Show and arriving in late 2000 in Japan and January 2001 ...

*2007

Toyota Tundra The Toyota Tundra is a full-size pickup truck manufactured in the United States by the Japanese manufacturer Toyota since May 1999. The Tundra was the second full-size pickup to be built by a Japanese manufacturer (the first was the Toyota T100 ...

*2007 Toyota FT-HS concept *2006 Toyota F3R concept *2005 Scion t2B concept *2005

*2004 Toyota FTX concept *2004 Lexus LF-C concept *2003 Lexus LF-X concept *2003 Toyota FJ Cruiser concept *2002 Toyota Matrix *2001 Toyota RSC concept *2001

Toyota RAV4 The is a compact crossover SUV produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is known for starting the wave of compact crossovers. The RAV4 is one of the best-selling SUVs of all time. By February 2020, a total of 10 million RAV4 ...

*2001

*2000

Toyota Celica The is an automobile produced by Toyota from 1970 until 2006. The Celica name derives from the Latin word ''wikt:coelicus, coelica'' meaning ''heavenly'' or ''celestial''. In Japan, the Celica was exclusive to ''Toyota Corolla Store'' Car deale ...

*2000

*1999 Toyota Solara *1997

Toyota Prius The is a Compact car, compact/small family car, small family liftback (supermini/subcompact sedan (car), sedan until 2003) produced by Toyota. The Prius has a Hybrid vehicle drivetrain, hybrid drivetrain, combined with an internal combustion ...

*1997? Toyota Solara convertible concept *1995 Lexus FLV concept *1995

*1995

Toyota Tacoma The Toyota Tacoma is a pickup truck manufactured by Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota since 1995. The first-generation Tacoma (model years 1995 through 2004) was classified as a compact pickup; subsequent models are classified as mid-size ...

*1991 Lexus SC/Third-Generation Toyota Soarer *1990

Toyota Previa The Toyota Previa, also known as the in Japan, and Toyota Tarago in Australia, is a minivan that was produced by Toyota from 1990 until October 2019 across three generations. The name "Previa" is derived from the Spanish for "preview", as Toyo ...

/Estima/Tarago *1990

*1989 Toyota MX21 concept *1985 Toyota FXV-II concept *1979

Toyota Hilux The , stylised as HiLux and historically as Hi-Lux, is a series of pickup trucks produced and marketed by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. The majority of these vehicles are sold as a pickup truck or cab chassis, although they coul ...

*1978? Toyota FXV concept *1978

*1977 Toyota F100 concept *1977 Toyota CAL-1 concept

References

External links

* {{Automotive industry in the United States Automobile designers Design companies of the United States Toyota subsidiaries 1973 establishments in California

See also

References

External links