TOKYO, Oct 29 — The Tokyo motor show may be just a few hours old but there’s a good chance that Yamaha, the motorbike company, might have this year’s star car on its stand.

The Sports Ride Concept, which the company teased to perfection in the weeks running up to its unveiling yesterday, is a very well proportioned two-door coupé. Moreover, it’s one that despite a diminutive footprint — it’s just 3.9m long, 1.7m wide and stands just 1.17m tall — could just have easily rolled out of the high-tech production facilities of McLaren or the atelier of Pagani, such are its lines, the size of its rear haunches and the attention to detail that permeates the interior.

And the McLaren reference in particular is fitting, as this car was developed in partnership with Gordon Murray, the man who conceived the legendary carbon fibre McLaren F1. However, his expertise for this project was confined to the car’s chassis while a Japanese-English design group, headed by Dezi Nagaya took care of the concept’s look and feel working from a brief that demanded the car reference Yamaha’s bike design philosophy and offer owners an exciting driving experience that could be enjoyed every single day.

Yamaha is being coy about the car’s performance credentials but technically, they’re of secondary concern, thanks to Murray’s input. His company has pioneered a new form of carbon fibre chassis construction for this model, which he has dubbed iStream Carbon. Until now it was the preserve of supercar companies but the Sports Ride Concept demonstrates that it is possible to use the material for an affordable high-volume production car.

“Light weighting is the final frontier in the automotive industry fight to lower emissions. There have been great strides forward in engine design, electrical control systems, tire design and transmission technology, but we are now experiencing a plateau in the advance of technology where the law of diminishing returns comes into play. A step change in vehicle weight to enable downsizing of powertrain and components is all we have left in the armory. Light weighting is important for internal combustion engined cars, but even more important for hybrids and electric vehicles,” said Murray of the breakthrough.

But as well as being light, carbon fibre is incredibly strong and rigid and if successfully mass-produced, kinder to the environment than other materials. And with the new iStream platform, companies will be able to take the basic chassis and simply adjust it for bigger and smaller cars and for convertibles as well as hard tops without huge expense, retooling or other associated obstacles. — AFP-Relaxnews