The exclusive, rounded roof with its fibre glass canopy; architectural features such as the voluptuously curvaceous windscreen, rear and side windows (which are fixed to the pillars to create a suitably rigid structural frame), ensure safety and functionality to the whole. These, in nuce, are the distinctive features of the Subaru SVX.

The design combines a 3-volume configuration with a generously sized cabin and a tailgate enclosing an exceptionally roomy boot. Aerodynamics played a vital role in this design project. The front has soft, rounded forms with a bumper capable of distributing air flows efficiently between the top and underside of the vehicle. To improve stability at high speed, a spoiler is mounted to the lower section of the bumper. The line joining the engine compartment to the windscreen, the roof and the rear window ensures that the air flow is always homogeneous.

Toyota's ambition to invest in products worthy of standing alongside the prestige models of Mercedes and BMW transpires to the full in their briefs for the Lexus marque. This large luxury sedan, designed and built by Giugiaro, certainly fitted the bill. With its style, comfort and performance, it fully deserved its place in the new channel. The Aristo gives a European or, rather, Turinese slant to a lavish design that, in Japan, risked becoming top-heavy and somewhat gratuitous. With the Aristo and the Lexus GS 300, Gothic gives way to Romanic purity of format, simplicity and equilibrium.

A compact aerodynamic car, with a length of less than 4 metres thanks also to shortened overhangs, the Proto C was a further development of the package concept first devised by Giugiaro with the Proto T./TL. It is a blend of a single-box and a two-box car; it is, in short, a two-box car that tends towards a single-box. The impression given by the side view of the Proto C is of continuity between bonnet, windscreen and roof, but a sharp edge breaking their blending into each other is noticeable at the height of the base of the windscreen. The roof and the rear window, however, are united in the traditional manner as in the most classic two-box cars. A plan view gives an ideal picture of the development of the mirror-type glazed surfaces that also act as a roof and form a continuous shape, separated from the side windows by slim-line front pillars which continue onto the roof and taper to meet up with the tailgate.