AUTOMOTIVE VIEWS NEWSWIRE — If the 2016 Toyota Prius strikes you as out of this world, that’s on purpose. The normally staid Toyota Motor Corp. decided that the fourth-generation Prius needed space-age swoopiness to go with its advanced hybrid engineering. This is why the Prius’ styling was outsourced to a consulting shop which has never designed a car — or at least one large enough to be driven by adults on legal American roads. Dry Canal Design has specialized in toy design for years, including the popular Martian Automotive Classics line of metal-cast scale models.
“We were very impressed with the advanced look of Dry Canal Design’s toys,” said James Yenti, Vice President of Quality Control and Cost Cutting. “They have routinely predicted the future of car design a good five years ahead of conventional automakers.”
Yenti said that fashioning car design from popular toys was also a marketing move. “Our research has shown that children in the three-to-six-year age group possess significant influence over car-buying decisions in young families. Mom and dad are eight times more likely to buy a car that looks like junior’s toy car — particularly when junior has driven that car all over their arms, legs and winding mountain roads.”
This is why the new Prius looks very similar to the Martian Automotive Classics model called the Elysium Mons. The jagged lines of the headlights and taillights are a signature feature of that car. “This look is very popular in Martian sci-fi fashion,” says Dworka Argyre, who headed the Dry Canal Design team that worked on the Prius.
Although designers spared nothing to make the Prius the most stylish hybrid on Earth, Argyre also pointed to numerous functional innovations. For example, the large gills below the headlamps house optional Tactical Force Lazar Beams. Argyre explained that “TFLBs function as ‘stun guns’ that can be used to defend the Prius driver against unwanted incursions into their automotive freedoms.”
TFLBs are not legal in all states, noted Toyota’s Yenti. West coast and New England states have been most resistant to approving the technology, but Toyota is hopeful that the Prius’ popularity among environmental doomsayers in those states will ultimately overcome onerous regulatory restrictions.
The Prius’ design has been met with mixed reviews from auto industry observers. The most prominent advocate for the Prius has been former BMW design head Chris Bangle, who now teaches Kundalini yoga at a retreat center outside of Geneva, Switzerland.
“The new Prius is an all-too-rare design that could never be confused with that of a competitor’s,” said Bangle. However, he expressed a concern that the Prius’ downward-spiking taillights could be confused with the neon sign of a roadside business. “That might lead to unfortunate mishaps.”
The Prius’ unorthodox rear styling has generated the most criticism. Tom McCahill called it “stranger than Raymond Loewy’s private wardrobe.” McCahill, a legendary automotive writer, decided to make his views public after rolling over in his grave.
“The Prius’ rear end makes a sphincter look like the Mona Lisa’s smile,” said McCahill through a publicist. “Behold a derrière so bizarre that Weird Al calls it mom. Even Chris Bangle couldn’t have mangled that more badly if you had doused him in LSD and let him loose with 10 gallons of day-glow paint and a dozen poo-flinging chimpanzees in heat.”
Meanwhile, the International Federation of Automobile Designers took the unprecedented step of denouncing the styling of a specific automobile.
“The 2016 Prius is easily the world’s worst car design since the 1961 Plymouth,” said federation president Franz Von Cloute. “The car looks so strange that it has been empirically shown to scare little children. The Prius is a lethal weapon that should be confined to military campaigns.”
“The substandard caliber of this design is no accident,” added Von Cloute. “The Prius was outsourced to a firm on the planet Mars that costs a small fraction of Earth-based design talent.” Dry Canal Design operates out of an underground studio in the Hellas Basin, which is located in the southern plains of the red planet.
Von Cloute noted that this was not the first time a space alien has designed an automobile. Virgil Exner, who was the Chrysler Corporation’s chief stylist from 1953 to 1961, was originally from Alpha Centauri.
“The big difference between Exner and Dry Canal Design is that Exner relocated to Earth before entering the auto industry,” said Von Cloute. “Exner received a normal level of compensation and made an honest — if not always successful — attempt to learn Earthly ways. You can’t say that about Dry Canal Design.”
Yenti declined to comment on Toyota’s contractual agreement with Dry Canal Design. However, independent analysts estimate that development costs of the 2016 Prius were 96 percent lower those of the previous generation. This is because Martian labor costs are light years lower than even third-world nations on planet Earth.
Outsourcing its design to a Martian studio represents Toyota’s attempt to stay one step ahead of Nissan Motor Company, which recently opened a design studio in San José de Chiquitos, Bolivia. Nissan’s goal is to slash development costs for a forthcoming sporty subcompact crossover code-named Banana Republic.
Keith Crain, founder, CEO and Senior Analyst of Crain AutoIntel Superstore, said that “Toyota has thrown open the barn doors extra-wide in the search for a bigger farm team.”
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah — let the inter-planetary race begin!” Crain exclaimed. “For all we know, the next big automotive hit may come from Uranus.”
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PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Author’s photo gallery: “Toyota Prius: Styling Disaster”
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