Nic Hogios is the senior manager at Toyota Design Australia, having been with the local arm of the Japanese brand for 21 years.
Before that he had a four-year stint as a senior designer at Ford Australia.
During that period, he penned one of the most iconic Australian touring car liveries of all-time; the Craig Lowndes Falcon dubbed the ‘Green-Eyed Monster.
Hogios was also involved with the design of the BA model Falcon road and race cars during his time with the Blue Oval.
“I’ve always been a fan of touring car racing from a little kid, so whenever I’ve had an opportunity to be involved, I have been,” Hogios told Speedcafe at Bathurst.
“[The Green-Eyed Monster] was something I came up with. I thought I’d try something, and I think it captured the imagination of a lot of people.
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“It was a little sketch in the back of the book, which I’m still doing to this day mind you, little doodles in the back of the book.”
Hogios says designing the Supra Gen3 car was far more rewarding than work on the BA Falcon V8 Supercar due to the evolution of the category’s rules.
“The category has changed quite a lot with the Gen3 chassis and the body over the top, so the freedom we’ve got now is a lot more,” he said.
“That’s why it was such a joy to work on because we weren’t necessarily restricted to modifying sheet metal of road cars.
“Sculpting it visually and sculpting it in the flesh was a much better process than I’ve ever experienced.”
Whether Hogios and his Toyota design team will be involved in any race liveries for the Gen3 Supras is yet to be determined.
“As a development program we did what you see here today.,” he said.
“Beyond that we haven’t even spoken about it yet, but there’s obviously a lot of sponsors that go on the car and corporate identities and things that are very well protected these days.
“But we’ll support the teams in any way we can, including liveries if it comes to that.”
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