Four Wheeler had a chance to spend time with Tundra senior exterior designer Matt Sperling at Toyotaâs Calty Design Research in California
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MotorTranscript
00:00 [VIDEO PLAYBACK]
00:09 -We could ask almost any car designer, and they'll tell you
00:11 the same story.
00:11 They were sitting in the class, in the back of the
00:13 class, sketching cars in the back of their notebooks.
00:15 And I'm no exception.
00:16 I was doing the same thing.
00:17 I love drawing trucks.
00:18 It's just fun to draw them.
00:19 They're just big and chunky and muscular and kind of cool.
00:23 And they're not super athletic like a sports car.
00:25 And I'm not super athletic either.
00:28 It's like when you see people that have a dog that looks
00:30 like them.
00:30 It's sort of the same in this sort of relationship.
00:33 So yeah, I guess I am kind of a truck owner.
00:35 When there's already sort of a vehicle that has a reputation
00:39 and a positive reputation, it's way more difficult to
00:42 sort of build on top of that.
00:44 If you're doing something from scratch,
00:46 there's no expectations.
00:48 The freedom makes it more exciting from a
00:51 designer's standpoint.
00:53 I thought drawing cars would have been just fun and care
00:56 free, and it's boot camp.
00:59 It's funny nine times out of 10.
01:01 People will gravitate toward the little tiny thumbnail that
01:03 you start with.
01:04 And that's usually what they call a key sketch.
01:07 And even as late as the full-size model process, if
01:11 there's any question about what's going on in the
01:13 modeling process, they'll say, look to the key sketch.
01:17 Obviously, looking at a tiny little pencil scratch on a
01:21 piece of paper, you can't literally translate that into
01:25 a full-size vehicle.
01:26 You're going to see on the road that the idea is to get
01:28 the feeling of that.
01:29 What is it about that sketch that was so enticing to go to
01:34 this stage in the modeling process?
01:35 Obviously, there's something there.
01:38 I need you as the designer to figure that out and implement
01:41 that feeling to this full-size.
01:43 Here's a general idea of where we'd like you
01:45 to begin sketching.
01:47 We actually want you as the designer to come up with
01:51 images that inspire you based on what we
01:53 think we want to see.
01:55 Bring those images to the table.
01:57 Use those to inspire your own designs.
01:59 And then go from there.
02:00 Simple and honest is all you need on a truck.
02:04 Nice blocky section.
02:07 You can also drive yourself crazy going back and forth
02:09 all the time.
02:11 The idea is not to do that.
02:14 There's a lot of honesty that goes into our work.
02:15 There's a lot of pride that goes into our work.
02:19 I mean, you essentially, every time you do a sketch, you're
02:23 putting your heart and soul in everything that you do.
02:25 I think the tundra that's coming up pretty soon, that
02:28 was a huge project for me and for the company.
02:32 I had a lot of involvement on that.
02:34 So maybe there's more of a rewarding factor there.
02:38 It was great to see the thing in its full production set up.
02:43 It's really kind of trippy to see all the stuff that you
02:45 spent months laboring over in sketch form and then taking
02:50 lines on the model to get the lines just right and working
02:53 things out and having your bosses help you out with
02:55 those stuff.
02:56 It's really cool to see it with pretty spotlights on it
02:59 and all lit up and painted and chromed out.
03:02 So that's basically how that project went.
03:04 Usually, a lot of projects are really laborious.
03:07 And that one was not.
03:09 That was a very smooth project.
03:11 And it was super fun to do.
03:12 And it turned out to be pretty successful.
03:14 That's what's kind of cool about trucks.
03:20 They're sort of honest and functional.
03:21 (upbeat music)
03:24 (upbeat music)