The Prius That Shook.. - VFAQ Prius Site

opinion about the future even when they started with a
common set of assumptions. Designers at EPOC in
Belgium asked, "Mr. Uchiyamada, we think that a car
based on this theme should be a two-box car. That way, we
can create a better design. Why do you insist on a three-box
car?"
Most subcompact cars in Europe, e.g., VW Golf and Fiat
Punto, are two-box cars. Even with mid-size cars equipped with
2000cc-class and higher engines, Europeans prefer 5-door
hatchbacks that look like sedans from the outside (e.g.,
Citroen Xantia). Convenient and userfriendly cars are
preferred over good-looking cars in Europe, while Japanese
consumers generally feel that a sedan should have a trunk.
The differences were due to how people view cars.
Europeans consider cars only as a means of transportation.
On the other hand, Japanese people attribute values, such as
joy of ownership and individuality to their cars. That is why
the design approach was vastly different among the
competitors even though they were based on the same
theme. Although EPOC's design displayed innovative ideas in
various areas, it lacked coherence as a three-box sedan and was
rejected.
CALTY, another overseas contestant, submitted a sketch
accompanied by a photograph of a one-fifth-scale urethane
model. Irwin Lui, its designer, created the form from a
pure egg-like shape to produce and emphasize the futuristic
image. He slowly applied pressure from the
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