Toyota's new design recipe: Humphries seeks to blend 'Japanese-ness' with a pinch of spice

摘要

TOYOTA CITY, Japan - Toyota is often billed as the most Japanese of Japanese automakers, but it has turned to a foreigner to spice up the company's famously bland styling. Simon Humphries, the soft-spoken Englishman tapped for the job, isn't the person you might expect to head the global design studios of the world's biggest carmaker. Before joining Toyota in 1994, he had virtually no experience in vehicle design. And instead of injecting Toyota with a major dose of foreign perspective, Humphries is - by his own admission - sometimes more Japanese in his aesthetics than his own Japanese stylists.