(first posted 8/8/2011) There are many cars that are essentially defined by a singular feature: the DeLorean with its stainless steel body panels; the bubble canopy of the Messerschmitt; the gas tank location on a Ford Pinto. Perhaps one of the lessor known examples would be the Toyota Sera, with its trick doors. Just don’t call them scissor, gullwing or Lambo style doors, as any Sera owner is sure to set you straight; they are butterfly doors, just like on a McLaren F1. But that’s where any comparison to that car ends. In the words of Bill Clinton: “You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle”
Hinged on the A-panel, the Sera’s doors lift up and out in the tightest of places, which would certainly help in the only market the Sera was sold in, Japan. According to Wikicars, 43cm (17 inches) clearance is all you need, but somehow I suspect Seras were sold on the cool factor rather than any practical reasons.
Something a bit more practical with similar styling (minus the fancy doors) would get you a Toyota Paseo, which is essentially what the Sera is. Both the Paseo and Sera are in turn based on the Tercel, or the Japanese market Starlet, which donated its 1.5L 5E-FHE four cylinder engine making all of 108hp. Should that not be enough punch to match the exotic doors, an engine swap with a donor Starlet GT and its turbocharged engine is just a shipping crate from Japan away. A faster pig still isn’t an eagle.
A common misconception about the Sera is that it was only available with an automatic transmission. This is how most were built and sold, given that Japan is almost as fond of the automatic gearbox as the US, but both a five speed manual and the four speed automatic were available.
Despite the sporty looks of the Sera, it is not exactly known as a performance machine in either straight line speed or handling. A good part of the reason is all the extra weight of the doors, which of course ends up exactly where you don’t want it; up high. All that extra glass area means the Sera is also a bit more softly sprung.
Air conditioning was fitted to each and every Sera as all that glass operates just like a green house on warm days. The rear occupants must be prone to getting sunburn under that massive one piece rear glass. On the plus side visibility must be fantastic. There were panels to provide relief on the top glass part of the door but our owner has installed some of mural on the roof of their Sera to kept the sun out and apparently pay homage to their favorite band. It looked to be a similar material that those window bus ads that allow you to mostly see out are made of.
Seras are now found worldwide thanks to grey market imports in places such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. This one has found its way to western Canada thanks to our “fifteen-years old and it’s legal” rules. It is actually one of a handful around town which is remarkable since less than sixteen thousand were produced and were only sold half a world away. It can perhaps be partially explained by Seras having historically had one of the lower values of imported Japanese cars, probably due to lack of performance image while at the same time being very distinctive.
The Sera did have a few other party tricks up its sleeve including one of the first uses of project headlights, a feature its predecessor the Toyota AXV-II concept car of 1988 didn’t have. A sought after option is the so called Super Live Surround Sound or SLSS to turn your Sera into a mobile sound capsule. It features ten speakers, a Digital Sound Processor, various head units and enough presets to shake a stick at.
It is certainly easy to suspect that the Sera is a bit of a one trick pony, and one can certainly imagine every one you’d see at a car show would have its doors open much like Corvair owners always seem to have their rear mounted engines on display. Why not? Show and tell. Sure it doesn’t have wild performance, but not every car needs fire breathing dragon performance as some could perhaps pose with their butterfly doors. Unlike most one trick ponies though, the Sera doesn’t seem to have any glaring weakness and its pedestrian mechanical bits are only a Paseo away, unlike a McLaren F1. A cute and reliable piglet with wings; what’s not to like, even if it can’t fly?
Wow – another car I had no idea ever existed. What a unique concept, I wonder why Toyota never went further with it. With all that glass, it must feel like being in the cockpit of a fighter jet. You would need one whale of an air conditioner in a hot sunny climate, though. Although the glass is cool, there would probably be no reason that the door tops could not be steel for weight savings (but no sunroof, I guess).
Thanks for sharing this fascinating car with us.
Wow, amazing that these made it into serial production. From Toyota too! Where did this bold, whimsical kind attitude gone nowadays? Toyota desperately need them back!
Ah yes, early 90’s Japanese “organic” design. To me this is what characterizes that part of that decade. It certainly made otherwise boring cars seem kind of interesting to look at.
Of course it was just a matter of time before Detroit would give it a try, especially Ford and Chrysler, each with varying degrees of success.
Someday I would love to do a retrospective on design from this era. Problem is where I live there aren’t many cars left that I could snap pics of…
A you need is a picture of a 1996 Ford Tarus, ’nuff said.
Well, I sure see why I got that clue wrong. Never heard of this one. Looks a lot like a higher quality Geo Storm.
Same here on all three counts.
I think it’s based on the same platform as the Paseo coupe.
Very unique. It’s weird for weirdness sake, and I like it.
Well…it’s the window-in-a-window thing like the same time period Subaru SVX. I don’t like it for that sole reason. It looks “futuristic” and all, but not really that practical as far as comfort goes. I equate this particular feature along with those “peripheral controls” shaped like finger tips around the cowl shading the instrument cluster that were all the rage in the late 80’s – early 90’s.
There was some innovation in the industry back then, but not enough to float my boat, hence my un-apologetic love of our Plymouth Acclaim!
Hey, The Plymouth Acclaim brought all was great about K-cars and added a V6! And in some instances you could get it with the torqueflite instead of the Ultra Drive. I think of those as the ultimate K-Cars. Too bad they didn’t come as wagons.
We had our 1990 2.5L Acclaim 10+1/2 years! Best car we have ever owned until we bought our CR-V and Impala.
I followed one of these recently the driver was smoking and lifting the door at interdections to let smoke out I guess the cpower windows had died.
There were some interesting design ideas in Japan at on point all gone now only bland and boring being built there now.
Could you even build something like this nowadays with all the strict rollover standards in place? The Toyota Sera looks like something from a bygone era when car companies weren’t simply letting government mandated safety regulations dictate how they design their cars.
A lot of JDM cars are not certifiable in other markets due to lack of safety features
What an odd dash. Round vents for the driver, and rectangles right out of a Camry for the other guy. Interesting car anyway, tho.
Someone help me find parts supplier
this is MY car!!!!!! cool
Yes it’s true that the Toyota Sera is not like other JDM’s imported into Canada. Not a street racer by design. Nor intended! This car was targeted at the upscale urban Japanese buyer. Leaning more to the female executive on the rise. The cockpit design is actually based on an actual aircraft design. Excellent visibility of course. Lateral roll is high do to a combination of factors that can be eliminated with aftermarket tweaking. Mine rides like it is on rails and corners like any sports car is supposed to. Lower center of gravity with front & rear tower struts have eliminated roll issues. The Toyota Sera pictured is a poor example. Shame on you for displying a car that has not been tidied up before being so critical. Hit and run photography?
Here’s one of two that I own!
I’ve owned four of these over the last decade, imports into the UK. All were manual, three had SLSS.
They’re a great car – no, not fast (though fast enough), but they’re one of very few cars I can think of that look good from almost any angle. The door design allows for a graceful curve between the sides and the roof, so from front and back they look very rounded. And of course there are the doors themselves – I was often stopped by folk who showed an interest – some were put off that it was merely a Toyota, while some found it interesting that a major manufacturer could market such an odd and niche machine.
One of the things that I most liked about mine was the reliability – every MoT except one sailed through, very low mainteneance costs, very little work for me to have to do, and just one short breakdown.
Unfortunately it’s getting hard to find a good clean example now. They’re an old car, and recently they’ve come to the attention of enthusiasts who like to dick about with them. Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess. I have an MR2 Roaster now, but I’m keeping an eye out for my Sera number 5.
well just by seeing one unkept car u cant say it was or is a tin , just shows the poor calibre of the person who published it in first place. SERA’S are rare and wonderfull cars if one knows how to keep them. one of the first sports car from toyota, it has rare feature which if one wants will have to shed 100 folds more of money.
here are some pics of my sera
I have owned 2 of these now. first one was about 12 years ago when this was my main car and one i just bought yesterday for a restoration project and will be toy for the weekend.
they are very rare now and great invention for the time. Mine’s done 240k now but just like any toyota – they will go for ever if you look after them. only issue will be finding body parts – getting very rare. got to a stage when i called wrecker for something and they told me to call them and sell parts if i decide to give up haha
they have similar engine setup to Starlet/paseo and only 15850 were produced and becoming quite rare to get hold of good examples.
However they are great toy to have it in your collection, i wouldn’t use it for daily need but a great weekend run around toy.
it does get quite hot inside during summer and AC generally strugles to keep cool inside but amazing to drive it at night. Attached is a picture of mine. Goal is to bring to full factory spec like new. we are starting from the the gearbox and engine 🙂
you people that say my car is unkept! That is the condition I bought it in besides the decal on the roof. I don’t have thousands of dollars to paint and fix this car the way I want! Anyone ever buy a project and drive it while you work on it!? I have done a fair amount since this picture was published and taken WITHOUT my permisson! I also want to add I am sure all these pics on seras that look awesome did not start like those pics and more like this picture of my car!
That greenhouse must be HOT in the summer sun.
Sit in traffic to long in Arizona, and you’ll like a rotisserie chicken.
I have a Sera as a daily drive (in Brisbane Australia) and with the roof panels in it’s no worse than any other car. However, it has one advantage on the “hot interior” aspect which nobody has yet mentioned: with the doors open, hot air rises up and out of it without the need of any outside breeze. Much better than your average car which would remain full of hot/stale air 🙂
Without the roof panels though, you’re right – it’s a nightmare (the latches on my original ones broke, and I resorted to cardboard for a while till I got replacements, so I’ve had that experience too)
I have yet to see anyone say “Japanese Pacer” yet so I’m going to, dad blame it.
You beat me to it. A lot of Pacer and some Geo Storm or whatever it was. Either way, I’d rather have a Pacer.
“There are many cars that are essentially defined by a singular feature: the DeLorean with its stainless steel body panels;…”
I disagree. The DeLorean is known for two features; that stainless steel skin and the gullwing doors. I think the gullwing doors are probably the more defining feature.
I got some photos of one of these last summer in the parking lot at the All British Field Meet in Kenmore, Washington:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/12119356@N00/albums/72157670716262281
As it happened, I parked close to the car, the owner got out, and we chatted for a bit, but it didn’t occur to me to ask him to let me get a shot of the car with the doors open. I think it’s pretty neat, and I wouldn’t mind having one. With all that glass, I’d hope the a/c is good!
Given that it was a JDM car, can you even get Sera headlights for right-hand traffic?
Now available in the US under the 25 year rule. I’ve seen a couple on the JDM importer websites.
Is it so much a Paseo/Tercel mechanically that a lot of routine Paseo/Tercel service parts would fit?
Please tell me someone has one with a license plate that says QUE SERA.
Many cars with bubble bodies are gorgeous, specially the ones from Mazda and many stuff from Toyota, like this Sera and it’s distant brother in style, the Opel Tigra, however like a sudden success song easy to learn it gets boring and forgettable too fast. The lack of details gives them a cheap looking which also doesn’t help.
A Japanese Pacer! Who’d a-thunk it?
My friend Tom got one imported in 1998, a week in he regretted everything 😛
I just purchased mine 1990 Sera, needed a lot of work, parts wise. Nothing to hard to fix. I got mine all factory spec now. I love it, sure gets alot looks…