The Toyota FT-1 was a concept car, not a production model. It was revealed at the 2014 North American International Auto Show in Detroit by Toyota’s Calty Design Research studio as a design study for a future sports car. There was no 2019 FT-1, because the FT-1 was never put into production; the car that eventually reached showrooms was the fifth-generation GR Supra, which went on sale in 2019.
What the FT-1 Was
The FT-1 was an engine-less styling exercise, built as a real fiberglass-and-foam show car rather than a working vehicle. Calty, Toyota’s design studio in Southern California, created it under a brief to design the ultimate sports car. The concept also appeared in the Gran Turismo 6 video game, and Toyota’s then-president Akio Toyoda drove it in the simulation at Fuji Speedway. The name stands for “Future Toyota One.”
The FT-1 followed an earlier Toyota sports concept, the FT-HS, which had appeared at the 2007 North American International Auto Show. Both were Calty projects, and both were intended to show what a future Toyota performance model could look like rather than to preview a specific car going straight to dealers.
Exterior Design
The FT-1’s exterior captured a race-car look, with a long hood, curvilinear forms and a wraparound windscreen and side glass that referenced the original Toyota 2000GT. Toyota also cited its sports-car heritage — the 2000GT, Celica, Supra and 86 — as the conceptual background for the design. The result was a low, wide shape intended to signal that Toyota was putting more emotion into its styling, a theme it carried into later production cars such as the Supra.
Toyota described the FT-1 as the result of Calty’s mission to create the ultimate sports car, a brief the studio developed with input from Toyota leadership.
Interior and Cockpit
As a show car, the FT-1 was completed with a driver-focused cockpit, but because it was never signed off for production, none of its cabin design transferred directly to a road car. Instead, its proportions and design language informed the sports car Toyota eventually built. That car, the GR Supra, arrived with a conventional two-seat layout and a driver-oriented dashboard of its own. As a sports car concept, the FT-1 was a two-seat design, matching the layout of the models that inspired it.
Powertrain
The FT-1 had no engine. It was a static design concept, and Toyota never announced a production powertrain for it. Reports linking the FT-1 to a hybrid V6 were speculation at the time and were never confirmed, precisely because the car was never engineered for the road. That is an important distinction: the FT-1 was a styling study, not a pre-production prototype. With no engine fitted, the show car could not be driven under its own power; it was built to be displayed and, later, rendered in software.
The FT-1’s Place in Toyota’s Sports Cars
The FT-1 arrived during a period when Toyota was rebuilding its performance lineup. The compact 86 sports coupe (sold in North America as the Scion FR-S and later the Toyota 86) launched in 2012, and the FT-1, shown in 2014, pointed the way toward a larger, more powerful flagship. Although the concept did not enter production, its design direction fed into the fifth-generation Supra.
The concept was well received and became playable in Gran Turismo 6, which helped keep it in the public eye long after the 2014 auto show season. Toyota later revealed additional versions of the FT-1 concept in 2014, again tied to the game rather than to a production plan.
From FT-1 to the Supra
The production car the FT-1 anticipated is the fifth-generation Supra, sold as the Toyota GR Supra. It entered production in March 2019 and went on sale as a 2020 model. The GR Supra was developed jointly with BMW and built by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria, on a platform shared with the BMW Z4. It used BMW engines — a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder or a 3.0-liter turbocharged straight-six — paired with an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. The US-market 3.0-liter cars were rated at 335 hp and 365 lb-ft at launch, and the Supra competed against sports cars such as the Nissan GT-R.
- 2.0-liter BMW B48 turbocharged four-cylinder: 194 to 255 hp depending on version.
- 3.0-liter BMW B58 turbocharged straight-six: 335 hp and 365 lb-ft at launch in the US.
The GR Supra rides on a 2,470 mm (97.2-inch) wheelbase and measures about 4,380 mm long, giving it the short-wheelbase, wide-track proportions first hinted at by the FT-1.
Development Timeline
The path from concept to production car spanned roughly five years. Toyota applied to trademark the Supra name in 2010. In 2012 Tetsuya Tada, chief engineer of the 86, said the company president had asked him to make a Supra successor as soon as possible. The FT-1 concept appeared in January 2014, and the production GR Supra finally entered production in March 2019, going on sale as a 2020 model.
Why There Was No 2019 FT-1
Anyone searching for a “2019 Toyota FT-1” is looking for a car that does not exist. The FT-1 was a one-off concept shown in 2014 and never entered production. The Toyota sports car that actually reached the market in 2019 was the GR Supra, built in Austria with BMW engines. Buyers who want the closest thing to the FT-1 concept should therefore look at the Supra, not at a model called the FT-1.
Related Toyota model reviews on this site: 2019 Toyota MR2 Review, Car Review, and 2019 Toyota Aurion Review.
