Toyota Sera

The Toyota Sera is a 3-door hatchback coupe of monocoque steel construction. The Sera's butterfly doors are hinged at the top center of the windscreen, and bottom of the A pillar and open forward and up in a manner similar to the McLaren F1 and Saleen S7 - the McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray cited the Sera as the inspiration of the F1's door arrangement.^[3]

Stewart Reed first presented the concept to Eiji Toyota in the early 1980s, having developed the model at Toyota's Calty Design Studio in Newport Beach.^{[citation needed]} The Japanese design team carried it to another concept model with softer exterior curves, and ultimately a production model which was exhibited it at the Tokyo Motor Show.^{[citation needed]}

The weight of each door is primarily supported by a thick gas strut and counterbalanced by a smaller secondary strut inside the door. Unlike conventional hinged side-opening doors, the butterfly doors can be opened fully in a fairly confined space, requiring only 43 cm (17 in) of lateral clearance. The Sera features windows that curve upward into the 'glass roof' section of the vehicle.

The rear hatch is constructed of a single piece of glass without a supporting steel frame. This, in combination with a steeply sloping front windscreen and glass upper-door/roof panels (a total of six separate glass pieces overall), give the Sera its distinctive canopy and provides expansive visibility, although the B-pillar is far more noticeable in the all glass canopy. To deal with its high solar load, air-conditioning and twin removable interior roof panels are standard.

Front bucket seats feature three point seatbelts and can tilt and slide forward to give access to the rear. The rear bench seat features a fixed central arm rest and either two or three point seatbelts.

In its normal interior configuration (with the back seats up and the parcel shelf in place) the rear cargo area does have a noticeably small opening (52 cm by 82 cm) and an elevated lip necessitating the lifting of luggage quite high before it can be placed inside. However the boot (trunk) is relatively deep and spacious. In addition the rear seats fold down and both the parcel shelf and the rear divider panel (usually in place behind the back seats) can be completely removed, in essence turning the entire rear half of the car into a cargo area. As such the Toyota Sera has a large amount of available storage space for its size. The space-saving spare tire and changing kit are contained in a small compartment below the boot floor.

The Sera/EXY-10 was one of the first cars to feature projector headlights (though the 1988 AXV-II concept model featured conventional headlights).^{[citation needed]}

Toyota produced the Sera in three distinct trim variants, with either manual or automatic transmission, standard or ABS brakes and regular stereo or Super-Live Sound System ("SLSS") forming the three major choices for buyers. There were also a large number of additional factory options available across the entire production run.

The initial build and the majority of the Sera's total production (around 12,000 of the 15,852 or so cars produced) featured:

• 6 exterior colours (greenish yellow, medium blue, light turquoise (blue), wine red, dark grey and silver)
• beige/tan interior or greyish blue depending on exterior colour
• bayonet fuel filler cap
• hard-wearing ribbed and woven seat material

Around 2,300 cars of this second trim were produced featuring:

• pastel pattern in the main sections of the seats with tan/greyish bolsters depending on interior colour
• screw-type fuel filler cap
• different seat materials

1,550 of the final version of the Sera were manufactured, featuring:

• grey interior with seat fabrics that have a secondary colour to complement the exterior colour
• some engine component revisions
• side impact beams in the doors
• optional airbags (which may have been automatically accompanied by ABS)
• three-point rear seat belts (Some very early Phase 3 models had standard lap belts)
• stronger door struts to compensate for the side impact beams
• solid plastic spoiler with LED high-level brake light incorporated (the only external change to the Sera)