Toyota City, Japan - This is Toyota's first ever entrant for Milan Design Week: a concept car made primarily of wood.
It's called the Setsuna, a Japanese word meaning 'moment' - which also explains the philosophy behind the design. As anybody who has ever worked on a classic boat will tell you, a wooden artefact is not so much an object as a process.
As durable as it is, wood changes its colour, its dimensions and even its shape over time. Through years of interaction with the people who handle it, it acquires a patina that cannot be fabricated or synthesised.
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And that's what this concept is all about; Toyota says it embodies the idea that, over time, a car and the people who travel in it and care for it store up shared experiences.
The Setsuna symbolises how a car changes over the years, almost as if it's absorbing the memories and emotions of the family that own it, acquiring a special value that only they can appreciate.
It's an odd sentiment, perhaps, for a manufacturer of disposable econoboxes that are intended to be replaced every three to five years, but a very Japanese philosophy. it's also a very Japanese construction, using only indigenous species - birch for the frame, elm for the floor, cedar for the outer panels and cypress for the steering wheel.
TRADITIONAL JOINERY
It's assembled using a traditional Japanese joinery technique called okuriari, that doesn't use any nails or screws.
The components are held together by housed dovetail joints, and interlocking concave and convex shapes. Thus the outer panels are easily and simply replaceable throughout the life of the car.
To emphasise the idea that a car can carry these shared experiences from one generation to the next, the castor-wood dashboard includes a 100-year meter.
And yes, the Setsuna is a runner (of sorts); it has an electric motor that drives it up to 45km/h and six ordinary lead-acid car batteries to give it a range of about 25km.