Oh hell yeah. You know how you always see these crazy ‘concept cars at motor shows which have all sorts of ridiculous future tech and bizarre design choices that look completely impractical?

You know, the ones that end up being released a few years later, albeit with any fun stuff engineered out for safety, practicality and conservative taste reasons, leaving a boring functional appliance like every other car on the road?

Well, the Toyota Sera is one of the few examples where they skipped the ‘make it a boring’ bit and just released the crazy concept car to the public.

A relatively compact coupe, the car is most notable for its all-glass roof that extends all the way from the doors to the centre line of the car, ensuring its occupants have a maximum viewing area and a serious case of sunburn.





Most importantly, to achieve the full glass dome cockpit experience, the car has… wait for it..





…butterfly doors!

This is usually reserved for high end exotics, not a funky little commuter cars. (Fun fact: the McClaren F1 designer based it's doors / canopy on the Toyota Sera.)

However unlike the ones on hypercars - these are designed / made by Toyota so they're quite reliable and are there to serve a functional purpose, which is to allow you to get out of the car in tight spaces without much door clearance - a very handy feature in Japan.





And although it was tiny, the car was surprisingly practical, with rear seats and cargo, and the ability to put the seats down and extend the cargo era.

It also came in the most quintessential 90s colours like yellow green and teal.

But my favourite bit about this car was the optional sound system. Not just any sound system either - it was the Super Live Sound System (SLSS). This isn't just marketing - apparently it's a extensively engineered acoustic system built just for the Sera that was supposedly tuned to acoustically bounce noise around the glass canopy.

It was very advanced for the time, such that it added an additional 50kg of audio equipment to the cars weight. Quite a large amount for a car where every kilo counts.

But most importantly (to me), the SLSS system had two configurable options, ‘Casual Mode’ or ‘Funky Mode’, both of which were proudly advertised through the rear canopy.







Now, sadly none of the cool things about this car extend to its performance. It shares the same platform as a 3rd generation Toyota Paseo, which you may be more familiar with as they were released in western markets. The Sera was a Japanese only model.

The engine in this car is rather anaemic 1.5l , outputting 110 hp, which was mostly tuned for fuel efficiency rather than power, since every drive will involve constant use of the air conditioner to avoid cooking its occupants alive.

This car was built for looking cool, jamming along in super funky mode, taking in whatever sun poked through the high rises in Tokyo whilst stuck in gridlocked streets, not for racing.





The car does with weigh an impressive 930kg though, which will help get it moving. So maybe some tuning could make this thing come alive.

The car also exists as a mod in Beam.NG so I was able to do some experimentation, like seeing how awkward it is to get in under those butterfly doors… Or seeing if those butterfly wings help it fly.