CCotW: Lexus 2054 and Mag-Lev (2002)

When Steven Spielberg began work on his film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s story Minority Report, he gathered a group of writers, futurists, artists and planners into a hotel in Santa Monica for a three day retreat. Spielberg’s goal: describe the world of tomorrow in (mostly) realistic detail. The group rejected more outlandish ideas like teleportation, and nightmare scenarios like nuclear war or Blade Runner-like dystopias.

The world of 2054 that the group described looks much like our own, but overlaid with some surprising and frightening details. Spielberg and his team envisioned a Washington D.C. where the cozy Georgetown rowhouses and green parks are overseen by extensive webs of surveillance. Retinal scanning is everywhere. Personalised advertisements appear as one walks through a store or shopping mall, meaning retailers would have access to some of the same personal information as the surveillance state.

Beyond the historic core of D.C., vast cities of Hong Kong-like high-rise towers are linked with mag-lev highways that allow for smart vehicles to race around both horizontally and vertically. Apartments allow these vehicles to dock into the living space – plenty of Streamline Moderne and Brutalist architecture to set the stage, along with a fleet of cool sci-fi vehicles.

The Washington DC of tomorrow according to Minority Report

As the story developed, Spielberg knew he had to get the vehicles designed correctly. He turned to one of his futurist team members, Harald Belker, to design the futuristic cars. Belker, who had started his career at Porsche and Mercedes, was at the time designing vehicles for the films, with credits in such movies as Superman, Spiderman, Batman and Robin, and many others. He eagerly signed on to the project.

Harald Belker has designed many cars for film, including this Batmobile

As for the brand of the car, Spielberg only had to look out the window of his study. There, in the driveway, sat his Lexus RX300. He would later recall, “I had been driving a Lexus SUV. I thought Lexus might be interested in going into a speculative future to see what the transportation systems and cars would look like on our highways in fifty years. The result of that exploration is something that elevates and transforms driving into an environmental experience.”

A Lexus RX300 was the unlikely inspiration for a Spielberg-Lexus partnership

For its part, Lexus was very happy to be involved in the film, and paid a handsome sum to use the car design and movie tie-in for their 2002 and 2003 marketing campaigns:

“We were very flattered when Steven Spielberg decided that the future of the car lies with us. As the youngest premium car brand, we have always questioned the accepted norms of the car industry, from how we make our cars, and how we orientate our products to our customers; the results speak for themselves, and Steven Spielberg obviously agrees with our vision of what personal transport really means,” said Kirk Edmondson, General Manager of Lexus Division at the time.

The Mag-Lev

The Mag-Lev car was initially the transportation system of the movie. It travelled on dedicated Mag-Lev ‘roads’, and was a more of travelling lounge than traditional car, much like recent autonomous car proposals. To underscore this, the movie shows the car travelling vertically and docking into a high-rise apartment.

Tom Cruise steps out of his docked Mag-Lev into his apartment

As we reported at the time, Belker collaborated with Minority Report production designer Alex McDowell to devise the intricacies of the Mag-Lev system. “A lot of designers draw up ‘picture vehicles’ without thinking how the cars work,” McDowell noted. “Harald designs from a real-world stance. He combines his knowledge of mechanics to produce functional, aesthetic models.”

Says Belker: “The real problem was figuring out how to get a vehicle from a flat surface to go vertical, along buildings. We didn’t want flying vehicles, like Blade Runner. It had to make sense, with form following function.”

The Mag-Lev cars moved horizontally and vertically

“A lot of thought went into the Mag-Lev vehicle, and we were designing the whole system in parallel with it. The goal was to design an individual mass-transportation system, using a custom capsule that would transport you anywhere within the system” explains Belker.

“The interior was minimalist. Everything is voice activated and either displayed on video screens or holographic. After that was done and two were designs ready to go, I started to design about 20 futuristic road cars. Eight were quickly produced for background cars.”

A view of the different types of Mag-Lev designs used in the film

The Lexus 2054

As fantastic as the Mag-Lev car scenes were, it was the Lexus 2054 sports car that stole the show. The car actually came late into the story process, as it became clear that a vehicle would be needed for more traditional roads – of which there would still be plenty in 2054 – used for scenes outside the city.

The car was a sleek cab-forward sports car, a 2+2 design with an advanced powertrain and a planted stance that makes it seem ready to spring forward at any second.

A key sketch of the Lexus hero car

The extreme cab-forward nature of the car gave it an ambiguous shape that soon reconstituted the old Studebaker joke, “It is coming or going?”

“Some people ask me, which way is it going?” Mr. Belker recalled. “I tried to get into the car all the things little boys dream of: a really cool geometry, big wheels. I searched for the biggest wheels and tyres possible.”

Harald Belker and his Lexus sports car creation

The car was low and wide – two metres wide, in fact, but less than four metres long. The car was so short that anyone over 70 inches (1780 mm), including its designer, Belker, could not fit inside (Tom Cruise is 67 inches or 1702mm).

This perspective makes the car look long. It was actually under 4m

For the interior, 2+2 in layout, Belker designed a very streamlined cabin, with glossy curved screens, somewhat like the upcoming Tesla Roadster. But that left Tom Cruise with nothing to do in the interior, so Spielberg had Belker design some interfaces and buttons that are vaguely Art Deco in style to maintain the illusion that the car was more ‘analogue’ in nature and keep the star of the movie busy. Recalled Belker:

“It’s funny – you think future, so you minimize everything,” he says. “But I forgot about the actors.”

The interior – originally minimalist with just screens, but that left Tom Cruise with nothing to do

A Very Fast-Track Process

Again, as we reported at the time, “After one initial sketch and pricing and researching for a vendor to build it, there was just over three months to finish the vehicle, which left just two weeks to design it and at the same time build a 3D model. Paul Ozzimo did the 3D work and after 18 days the complete outer skin was finished, and three days later it was milled in full size. The vehicles were constructed by CTEK, a technology design and development firm based in Santa Ana, California.”

“The surfaces and lines came out pretty nicely. From that day on I sketched every morning on additional parts for the interior, which also had to be modelled in 3D and sent as digital files to CTEK by the next morning,” recalled Belker.

Due to the extremely short timeframe for fabrication, details were simple

Belker explains that the difficulty at this point was that the designs could not be too complicated; everything had to be reasonably easy to make. “For instance, the wheels. I knew that they will have to be cast, I had to recognize draft angles. I ended up having two hours to design it, and by the next day the model was sent off. The speed was mind-bending, but it was a fun time.”

“Without the backing of Lexus, we could have never done it. They were great, supported us in everything we did and gave us complete design freedom”.

Streamline Moderne?

The short length and wide body with muscular fenders, along with its circular geometry, led some to comment that the Lexus 2054 seemed like an extreme sports car version of the Volkswagen New Beetle. Certainly it bore a passing resemblance to the Audi Avus Quattro concept of 1992, itself an homage to the Auto Union cars of the 1930s.

The Audi Avus concept of 1992. Extremely cab-forward

It is also interesting to compare the car to some pre-war coupés from Bugatti and Delahaye. The extreme cab-rearward architecture seems somewhat similar in profile to the Lexus 2054. One gets the feeling that if the seats in these cars were reversed, a pre-version (a pre-cog, to use the movie term) of the Lexus could be seen.

A pre-war Delahaye, as cab-rearward as the Lexus is cab-forward. Sweepspear too

Certainly the Art Deco or Streamline Moderne style is a science fiction staple, and the Lexus coupé, with its strong geometries and the hint of a sweepspear across its flank and over its back, harks back to that era.

And yet, the composition seemed new and fresh, and even now there is a sense you could sell it as a cool sports coupé.

A hint of a sweepspear and circular geometry speaks of the Streamline Moderne

The movie, which is basically a murder mystery, is not considered among the director’s finest. But the storyline, overlaid with Philip K. Dick moral and philosophical conundrums, is still classic Spielberg, albeit with a generous dollop of Hitchcock-style dread. It has become a cult classic, as has its sports car.

Is it coming or going? Still difficult to tell

Belker described the project as “perhaps my most gratifying work on a movie to date.”

It remains one of our favorites as well.

Technical Specifications

Engine:
Smart recharging electric engine

Kilowatts: 500

Wheelbase: 106 in.
Length: 146 in.
Width: 82 in.
Curb Weight: 2300 lbs.

Chassis: Carbonfibre & Titanium Composite Monocoque

Suspension: Titanium Composite, Fully-Independent Double-Wishbone with Adaptive Variable Suspension (AVS), Speed-Sensitive Automatic Height Control (AHC)

Brakes: Computer-Controlled, Servo/Electronic, Ceramic Hybrid Discs, and Regenerative Electric System to charge all Systems.

Wheels and Tyres: 6-Spoke, Titanium Alloy, C-TEK Wheels, 22x9.5-inch with 285/30R22, HighSpeed Run-Flat Tyres

Advanced features

• Heads-Up instrumentation with Night Vision and Organic Recognition capability
• Colour-impregnated, carbon composite body panels with dent-resistant memory
• Body conforming bucket seats with automatic heating and cooling functions
• Laser Guided Cruise Control
• Stereolithography formed body panels
• Body panel colours selectable by owner voice recognition
• All systems fully computer-controlled with Voice-Activated and Gesture-Recognition capability
• All rearward vision via cameras rather than mirrors
• Sonar Parking Assist
• Switchable-tint glass all-around with solar panel glass in roof
• Retractable solar body panels for recharging and interior climate control during parking
• Information system display doubles as owner-recognizable personal computer
• DNA Recognition Entry and Ignition System: Via sensory intelligence, the system allows owner to enter and start vehicle.
• Accident Avoidance System: Infrared technology senses what’s ahead to warn of impending danger. Sonar parking assist and rearward vision cameras. Dent resistant memory metal protects exterior from dents and/or scratches.
• Self-Diagnosis System: Car automatically detects and alerts any mechanical or electrical problems. Voice-Activated Concierge Service will schedule necessary service appointments. A Lexus representative will travel to owner’s preferred location to service the car.
• Auto Valet: Once the car drops the owner off, it then parks to recharge (its retractable solar body panels automatically adjust to accommodate recharging). Upon remote command, the car will arrive at requested location.
• Global Digital Entertainment System (with Universal Translator and Personal Digital Recorder): Comprehensive music library, archived with a global directory; updates daily via cyber connection. The system alerts to breaking news, weather, stock, and/or sports reports, based on personal profile data.
• Voice-Activated Concierge Service (with Internet Search): Reserves restaurant, hotel and entertainment events via voice command.
• Weather Sensitive Response System: Solar panel triggers automatic window tint, adjusting the level of bright light to the driver’s sensitivity. Tire traction adjusts automatically to road conditions.