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Culture > Art

Lexus reaches for the moon with these concept vehicle sketches

With our dwindling resources, it’s time to consider living in space

If space travel must be luxurious, Lexus should be involved. IMAGE FROM LEXUS

Flying cars seem to be the in thing these days. Automakers like Hyundai and Porsche are partnering with aerospace firms to create their own interpretation of the air taxi. And while Toyota already has its vision of airborne transportation, its luxury division Lexus has other ideas.

Document Journal, a culture and arts magazine published biannually, approached Lexus’s design headquarters in Europe to come up with a series of drawings for spacebound concept vehicles. These are for the publication’s “Lunar Design Portfolio,” a collection of artwork portraying visions of a built-up society on the moon.

We bet the designers grew up watching sci-fi movies. IMAGES FROM LEXUS

ED2, as the studio is called, took up the challenge. Responsible for some of Toyota’s production cars such as the Yaris and the C-HR, the design team came up with some unique and literally out-of-this-world concept spacecraft that should be more than capable of embarking on adventures on the lunar surface.

The scope of vehicle types was quite wide as the artists envisioned people to be cruising around the moon in anything from all-terrain rovers to bouncing hamster balls and even a mothership with deployable exploration craft. One drawing, in particular, stood out. The Zero Gravity concept sketch is basically a floating lunar bike that appears to take advantage of the moon’s weaker gravity.

The design of the Zero Gravity concept vehicle was inspired by the spindle grille on Lexus cars. IMAGE FROM LEXUS

According to ED2 president Ian Cartabiano, these drawings were inspired by the LF-30 concept car. The lunar vehicles incorporated some of the design elements of Lexus’s futuristic EV, such as the brand’s signature spindle grille.

It has been quite a while since the last time humans stepped on the moon, but wouldn’t it be nice to dream about what we could do there with these vehicles?



Miggi Solidum

Professionally speaking, Miggi is a software engineering dude who happens to like cars a lot. And as an automotive enthusiast, he wants a platform from which he can share his motoring thoughts with fellow petrolheads. He pens the column ‘G-Force’.



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