Toyota Mirai Back To The Future edition swings its doors wide open

Even though Back To The Future Day is now in the past, Toyota isn't ready to let its promotional Mirai vehicle just sit in a closet somewhere. The heavily modified hydrogen fuel-cell Mr. Fusion-powered Mirai was first seen at SEMA earlier this month, but it's also on display at the LA Auto Show. It was our first time getting a good look at this silver beast.

MV Designz helped Toyota turn the already futuristic Mirai into something that approaches the iconic DeLorean time machine from the movies. The most obvious change was made to the doors, which now swing upward. A Toyota representative said that the hinges on the gull-wing doors certainly do work, but he couldn't close them for me because they're not designed for regular use.

The BTTF Mirai also has mirror-like 19-inch wheels, a fake Flux capacitor, a Mr. Fusion powerplant, and the classic OUTATIME license plate. It doesn't look exactly like the DeLorean used in the movies, but it's got a certain, unmissable charm all its own.

Toyota seemed to enjoy the recent Back To The Future nostalgia trip – the 1989 movie took place, in part, on October 21, 2015 – and enlisted actors Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd to reprise their roles in an ad for the Mirai. Whether by design or accident, October 21 is also when Toyota delivered the first Mirai vehicles in the US to residents in California. The Mirai, which means future in Japanese, uses compressed hydrogen sent through a fuel cell stack to produce electricity and thus power the wheels. No lightning strike required.