Best in Show

Brendan: It captured our hearts, if not our minds. While details were slim as to powertrain, Mazda’s RX Vision Concept pretty much stole the Tokyo Motor Show right from the outset. It was long, lean, and low, and we fell in love with it.

However, I really have to wade in with a warning here: there’s just no way this thing isn’t going to break our hearts. Check out the dimensions: that nose is ridiculously long. Sure, looking a bit like a Mazda-fied Aston Martin is a recipe for one hot Japanese number, but there’s absolutely no packaging reason for it, not if it’s truly going to get some next-generation Skyactiv-R rotary engine. The whole reason behind using a rotary is its compact packaging, and frankly a reborn RX-7 wouldn’t need to be much longer than the current MX-5 if it was a two-seater. This thing looks more like a new version of the 2000GT.

However, it’s still amazing, and gets my vote. A rotary-powered future might be a bit fuzzy, let alone one that looks like this, but we can dare to dream.

Jonathan: Like Brendan, I felt that the RX-Vision stole the show almost before it even started. While the proportions are overly dramatic and unnecessary for a compact rotary power plant, there is no denying its overall appeal. However, what got me even more than that slinky profile were the details: the unique sliver of a lighting element springing from the headlight, the evolution of Mazda’s signature spar through the taillights, and the way light curls and reflects off the subtly curved body panels and the stainless steel housings for the gauges and other interior trim.

Mazda will face some severe challenges getting a rotary-powered sports car to market, but they have a body ready and willing to inherit the soul of Mazda’s quirky powertrain legacy.

Best Concept

Brendan: Aside from Mazda’s vision of a slightly phallic future, there was one car that tempted me to break onto the stand and go ripping around the streets of Tokyo. It wasn’t a Toyota, it wasn’t a Honda (although that open-wheeled single-seater 2&4 was amazing), it was a Yamaha.

The Gordon Murray–designed Yamaha Sports Ride concept is like a baby McLaren F1, crafted from carbon-fibre and offered up as a potential competitor to the Lotus Elise. It’s a lovely confection of a thing, and if they could make it cheaply enough, it’d be the weekend antidote to the self-driving future.

Jonathan: Best Concept was a little hard to choose from after the sultry RX-Vision. There were many cool and quirky concepts, as well as high-tech and innovative ideas in play, but the one that stood out for me was a boxy little Daihatsu called the Nori Ori. Truly a shoebox of a vehicle for maximizing interior space relative to its footprint and in line with kei car designs popular in Japan, the Nori Ori is a demonstration of accessibility-focused design, with a low floor and ramp and reconfigurable interior (especially the folding front passenger seat that can slide under the front dash) for easy entry and exit of wheelchairs, strollers or people, and there was something captivating about its friendly inviting green and white colour scheme with lovely hardwood floors. It may not be a soul-stirring driver’s car, but for those that travel with wheelchair bound family or mobility-impaired friends, it’s a welcome innovation.

Best Production Car

Jonathan: There weren’t a lot of options to pick from as far as North American models, so in my mind it came down to the Toyota Prius, BMW M4 GTS and Audi A4. The Toyota Prius, although significant to the market, and possessed of radical new styling, still isn’t what you’d call pretty and we’ll have to wait on word as to its driving character, though we don’t expect it to stray too far from its proven formula for pleasant, innocuous motoring (though we’ll know soon as Brendan McAleer is driving it this week and will have a full report shortly).

As tempting as it is to pin the ribbon on BMW’s racecar for the street in the M4 GTS, it’s just a little too niche, even if we would sell an organ or a couple fingers and toes to get behind the wheel, the 2017 Audi A4 is an evolution of the company’s meat and potatoes, has already proven that it is a great car to drive, and it looks fabulous even alongside the spectacular concepts littered around Tokyo’s Big Sight convention centre.

Brendan: Sure, they could have toned down the orange accents a little; just because it’s October, BMW, we aren’t all into the whole pumpkin spice latte scene.

But leaving that aside, the M4 GTS is a complete monster of a machine, and for the first time, we’re actually getting it. Not just North America, Canada too! This water-injected 500-hp Teutonic menace is headed for our shores come spring, and as the ultimate expression of the M4, I just can’t wait.

Least Disguised “Concept”

Brendan: It’s a dead heat. Both the Subaru Impreza 5-Door Concept and the Lexus LF-FC painted a picture of the future that’s not so much a crystal ball as it is a virtual guarantee. This is what the future is going to look like, and by future, we mean sometime around next Tuesday.

The LS is the oldest model in the Lexus range, and if you ignore all the hydrogen-powered fuel-cell breathlessness, the LF-FC is pretty much what the new one’s going to look like. Surprisingly, it pulls off the hyper-futurism look, but perhaps that just because we’re all used to giant grilles these days.

The Impreza is a bit duller, but that might just mean it’s close to being production-ready. Interesting that they’d choose a hatchback concept – could the sedan version be on borrowed time? Does that mean a WRX hatch might return? That’s the hope expressed any time Subaru does any sort of concept whatsoever. Bring it back, Subie.

Best Taillights

Jonathan: Slow down there Brendan – did you not see the taillights on the back of the LF-FC? If the production car comes even close to those wild, Y-shaped multi-strip LEDs wrapped around that stainless steel Klingon knife blade, I’ll eat an LED matrix. But yeah, aside from that, the LF-FC seems only a few subtle details and powertrain removed from being a viable flagship design, and we’ll be lucky to have it on our roads, with a grille worthy of an art gallery or a scary Halloween lawn display, long hood, coupe-inspired roofline and subtle folds and creases of sculpted metal that will wow the neighbours and valets.

But yeah, the Impreza, also with some captivating taillights, seems ready for production, though no doubt we won’t get quite the full effect of the creased and complex front grille.

Unpopular Opinion: Worst Concept

Brendan: Everyone wants a small, light two-seater to come out of Japan and challenge the Mazda Miata. As good as the current MX-5 is, more choice is better, and we’re always on the lookout for something that can give us an option.

Toyota’s S-FR two-seater ain’t it. Look, I know beating up on this tiny coupe seems unfair, but let’s tick off the problems. One: it looks like a hair dryer mated with a day-glo guppy. Two, it’s got a 1.5L engine with even less power than the FR-S, which everyone wishes had a bit more punch. Three, have I mentioned the day-glo guppy thing?

We’ll never get this car on our shores, and that’s fine because we don’t need it. If anything Toyota needs to get cracking on reintroducing the Supra nameplate to lead the brand forward.

Jonathan: Well, It wouldn’t be fair to hang Brendan out to dry as the only one rejecting an effort to impress showgoers and the automotive world in general, so I’ll call out the Mercedes-Benz lozenge-lounge. I believe it was referred to as looking like a suppository in one outlet, and it’s hard to argue that point, a slippery aerodynamic shape suitable for cutting through the air and, well, other uses. As important as driver-assistance technologies are and autonomous driving is the way of the future, it seems unnecessary to waste a design exercise on turning the F 015 Luxury in Motion into a minivan and making a video to pronounce it “COOL” with its light-up equalizer front grille and “AUTONOMOUS” with an unlikely theoretical hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain.

Most Missed Brand

Brendan: Isuzu, we’re fine. Daihatsu, we’re not sure you ever got here in the first place. But Suzuki, oh man. We’ll B missing U.

This year’s display at Suzuki featured a host of tiny vehicles with outsized personalities, and they were all enough to make us miss the stylized-S brand. The drop-top Mighty Deck was particularly good, as was the Jimny. Who wouldn’t want one of those – the perfect vehicle for the narrow backcounty trails.

Ready for an Appearance in the next Transformer Movie

Jonathan: Although rarely grabbing headlines, FUSO is a popular brand worldwide for its delivery and commercial vehicles, not to mention heavy equipment. But this thing, the Super Great V “Spider”, this awesome, scary, work truck outfitted with scoops and claws and a downright evil red and black colour scheme is our pick to become the next Decepticon villain to be sheared limb from limb by Optimus Prime’s Energon sword (or something like that).

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