The sketch that inspired the new Toyota Supra

Toyota’s highly anticipated Supra may never have been green-lighted for production if it wasn’t for the curiosity of a skilful team of Californian designers.

Several years ago, Kevin Hunter and his Calty design research team inadvertently took a lead in the design of the upcoming halo car, toying around with some sketches.

As Hunter recently outlined to motoring.com.au during a visit to Australia, the humble drawings soon took a pathway of their own, ultimately growing to become the FT-1 Concept that forms the technical and design basis of the latest Japanese supercar.

“The FT-1 was pretty awesome for us -- first the concept and then the race car that was inspired by us,” said Hunter.

“We started FT-1 from nothing. We weren’t even asked to work on it from our home office. It was an idea that we proposed to head office to try and bring Supra back into the line-up.

“We didn’t call it Supra. It was really called FT-1 at the time. Ultimately, though, that was the purpose of it.”

What started out as sketches soon turned into something much bigger at the Californian studio; a project that will finally come to a head next year when Toyota follows up a new production version of its most prized nameplate.

“We had budget for it and we presented some sketches to my boss in Japan – he’s the head of all design. He liked the sketches and he said ‘go for it’,” Hunter said.

“That was it. It worked. We made a few updates to it and then we showed it to Akio Toyota [Toyota’s global boss] when we finished the model and even worked with the guys at Gran Turismo so he could drive the car.

“From that, [Toyoda-san] said ‘let’s make a show car’. We’re really happy with it because we basically instigated it,” Hunter added.

Toyota went one step short of unveiling the latest iteration of its legendary supercar in March by showing off the Toyota GR Supra Racing Concept at the Geneva motor show.

Toyota has committed to reviving the storied Supra nameplate in the near future, and the GR is a clear pointer. Insiders are calling the concept a ‘GT’ version of the real deal.

Officially, the show car is said to provide a “huge visual clue”, bearing a ’90’ race number on its doors to designate the codename for the fifth-generation model to follow the A40, A60, A70 and A80 Series before it.

Employing lightweight composite materials in body panels including the bonnet, front and rear bumpers, front splitter and rear diffuser, plus a plastic windscreen and side glass, the racing concept borrows heavily from Toyota’s motorsport forays.

Look beyond its motorsport additions, however, and the GR is pretty much what the Supra will look like when it hits showrooms in mid-2019.