JDM Traditional Japanese Car Toyota Sera

Sera is a 1,500cc 3-door coupe launched by Toyota Motor Corporation in 1990.
It had a novel "glassy cabin + gull wing doors" appearance that caught the attention of the younger generation.

The Serra was based on the uniquely styled AXV-II concept car that Toyota exhibited at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show. Then, in March 1990, the Serra was launched commercially, virtually unchanged.

The Serra's most distinctive feature was its huge glass canopy, which it called a "glassy cabin," and gull wing doors that sprang up to cut through it. As the catchphrase "all-weather convertible" suggests, it was a dream car that offered a different atmosphere from the usual, like being inside a goldfish bowl.
Officially, they are called butterfly doors, not gull wings.


Butterfly doors, gull wing doors, and other types of doors that spring upward are generally used on supercars, but the Serra was the first Japanese car to use them.

The name "Sera" is derived from the French word for the future, "to be," meaning "a car with a dream that flaps its wings toward the future.

The Serra was based on the fourth-generation Starlet, and to cope with the increased weight due to the glass canopy roof, a 1.5-liter engine used in the Corolla and other models was installed in place of the 1.3-liter engine in the Starlet. In addition, as a countermeasure against the greenhouse effect, a powerful air conditioner for high-end cars was installed.

The Serra's powertrain engine was a 1,500cc liquid-cooled inline 4-cylinder DOHC 16-valve EFI-S with maximum output of 110PS/6,400rpm net and maximum torque of 13.5kgm. The engine is a long stroke version of the 4E type engine used in Starlet and other cars.

The interior of the Serra had a futuristic design, as it was fully visible from the outside.
The uniquely shaped semi-bucket seats, the shape of the dashboard, and the letters and colors of the meters were designed mainly for the driver's seat, making it look good even when peeked at from the outside.
In addition, the shape of the recess for pushing up the door with the elbow and the grip for closing the door were also thoughtfully designed for convenience when opening and closing the door.
The glassy cabin, one of the features of the Sera, was an interesting design feature, but it also had some demerits, such as "the inside of the car is completely visible from the outside" and "the large area of glass makes it hot in summer.

In 1994, due to the inconvenience caused by the disadvantages of the glassy cabin as a design feature and the recession that began less than six months after the 1990 sales, production was unfortunately discontinued. 1 generation, 5 years of short history came to an end.