The concept's a joint venture between Toyota and Microsoft Xbox. "We've taken the idea of what would it be like to take an off-road vehicle and still be able to play your favorite video games in remote locations," said David Williams, a Toyota marketing planner.

The Tacoma ATG (TACO ATG for short — and on the license plate) starts with a stock double cab pickup with a 6-foot bed, removes the B-pillars and welds the front and rear doors together to create giant gull-wing doors on both sides of the pickup, creating a "patio-like" shelter for gamers.

Mike Levine from PickupTrucks.com has more to say:

"The driver and front passenger seats fold out and back, lining up next to the rear seats, so that four players can compete head-to-head in Microsoft's new Halo ODST multiplayer videogame for the Xbox. Four Samsung 24-inch LCD displays are stowed in the center of the cabin and swing out to give each player their own view of the gaming action.

Spectators can watch the action via a 60-inch Sharp LCD television mounted in the Tacoma's trailer receiver hitch."

But in our minds the best part is the license plate holder. It says "My other car is a Warthog." It's a nice touch...for a completely silly concept truck.

Christian Pearce isn't just some random illustrator with a knack for unusual media. The New Zealand-based man has amazing talent as proven by his employment at Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop, creating the dinosaurs for the most recent King Kong movie. Weta might sounds familiar to some of you as this is the same production studio that brought us the real-life Warthog, the gun-turret-wielding off-road beast from the popular XBOX franchise, Halo.

Pearce's work has become so popular in his kiwi hometown that he was featured in an exhibition titled 99DS this past February in Wellington alongside fellow Nintendo DS Colors artist, Greg Broadmore. [Drawn! via ChristianPearce.blogspot, 99DS]

This real-life Warthog was was put together in only six weeks in preparation for a planned Halo live action movie. Well, at least until the studios put the project on ice. The work was done in Wellington, New Zealand, at Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop and headed by project engineer Peter Osborne. The team at Weta based the Warthog on mechanicals from a diesel Nissan Patrol, but those were limited to basic chassis parts, the diesel engine, transmission and transfer case. Everything else is very, very custom. For the sake of simplicity, this early Warthog gets a set of heavily-reinforced solid axles instead of the fully independent suspension in the video game, but pretty much everything else is faithful.

The body is spot on with the game version, with a front-mid driver position and a functional roll hoop. The all-important armored machine gun also finds its proper place in the bed. As nerdy as it seems, one of the more impressive parts of the Warthog is the paint. Battle damage and military markings were treated with equal care, right down to the little "NO STEP" markings and scuff marks on the protruding fenders.

The best part of this might be the gaming writer XBOX Magazine sent to drive the Warthog. Despite having a license to dork, but not one to drive, the team at the Weta workshop let him have a go at the thing, they even dressed him up in the United Nations Space Command Marine armor designed alongside the monster machine. We point and laugh, but we'd have probably nerded out just as hard. [OXMOnline via WCF, Kotaku]

Of course, the Halo Pet Safety System still relies on the owner giving enough of a damn to go back out to the car and turn on the air. That's a pretty big Achilles' Heel when you consider that most responsible pet owners shouldn't need to spend the $100 that this gadget costs in the first place. [Product Page via Gizmag]

Unlike the pictures we saw earlier, the doors and the rear hatch roof were now removed on the vehicle I checked out, which made the HX look even more familiar and justified my relentless drilling of the designers about Halo.

I fully expected Rojas and Jablonski to quickly deny any kind of link—but the llevel of denial was stunning. Not only did Rojas quickly shoot down even the slightest bit of speculation, he was adamant, repeatedly stating the he neither owns an Xbox nor plays Halo. Jablonski echoed these denials. On a normal day that would be a fine, except a few days prior GM's director of exterior design for the HX, Carl Zipfel, admitted that "We all play [Halo]."

If you want to take a gander at this thing, it's clearly not a direct copy of the Warthog, but there are certain factors that one could draw assumptions from. The removable wheel fenders expose plenty of wheel-well action, which looks a lot like the Warthog. A completely covered and protected undercarriage and wheel wells is a necessity in Halo, to protect virtual combatants from imaginary barrages of assorted munitions. The Hummer designers must be anticipating that the HX will encounter similar action in the real world because the vehicle's protected undercarriage is a highly touted feature. The tailgate also opens for quick loading into the back with the folded down seats for when you have to quickly jump in and mount a gun turret. The roof of the HX is also removable, revealing a square top, which could be construed as similar to the Warthog's t-top.

So what's the final word? There isn't one. We've heard mentions of a link from insiders. We've heard speculation of a link across the Web. And even Rojas and Jablonski were quick to joke about the possibility of some kind of partnership with Bungie, makers of Halo, to get the Hummer HX into the game. While in-game advertising isn't something new, Bungie is not the kind of studio to participate in that, but on the other hand, Bungie's partial equity owner, Microsoft, would be more likely to join in.

It is safe to say that the Hummer HX is not a direct copy of the Warthog from Halo, but I can't get away from the fact that they share similar functionality, purposes, intentions—and that the designers were so adamant about their denials. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that neither the Warthog from Halo or the Hummer HX are actual production models. It's intriguing to see video games having a little bit of influence in the automotive industry, even if it is just with a conceptual design that will never see the light of day. Will we ever see GM hire away designers from the video game industry? Who knows?

5.) Saab 9-4x BioPower: Stainless-steel ski rack. Sure, it looks fine, and having the titanium-carbon-fiber Rossignols on the roof is just too risky these days. But where will the douchebag couple who spends the eight hours to Vermont talking about their trip to St. Bart's sit? Think about it.

4.) Saturn Flextreme: Clamshell trunk. While shellfish and trunk space are both well liked, combining the two is a pipe dream that'll, unfortunately, never be fulfilled. Saturn designers deserve credit for out-of-the-mollusk thinking, though. Hiho!

3.) Lincoln MKT: Those massive gauge tubes were reportedly inspired by Swarovski crystal. While they do add an upmarket, Ice Pirates ambiance to the Lincoln, no corporate lawyer in Scarsdale who's ever had a knock-down-drag-out with his spouse in the living room would risk another crystal decanter to the face, under any circumstances.

2.) Maybach Landaulet: Rear-seat convertible top. When everything shakes out, the 2010s may be known as the decade robber barons returned to lord it over the faltering middle class. But will the new JP Morgans and Vanderbilts really want to be chauffeured al fresco? We're betting not. These days, the proles have guns and laser scopes.

1.) Mazda Furai: Itself.

BONUS: One Feature Missing from a Detroit Concept Car: Hummer HX. Notwithstanding its visual connection to the Halo 3 Warthog fighting vehicle, the Hummer HX concept could be a great success on the dystopian streets of post-revolutionary America. But the kids would demand a turret mount, a glaring omission from the concept. Keeping the Covenant from attacking humanoid refugee shelters would be impossible without it.

"This will validate the engineering proficiency of Hyundai...it's a sure sign we've arrived."

Yes, a sure sign of arrival and engineering proficiency will no longer be a Dodge Viper, Saturn Sky Redline or Chevy Corvette in the driveway — it'll be a car based on the Hyundai Sonata or Azera. Sure.

HALO CARS: Hyundai is ready for its Halo cars [Freep]

Related:
That's Sonata Slow Rental Car: Man Busted Going 147 mph in a Hyundai [internal]