Danzer worked secretly with Akio Toyoda to set up a special shop at the NUMMI plant to test the feasibility of a new FJ40 by combining Tacoma underpinnings with the bodies of Toyota Bandeirantes, an FJ40-based vehicle, which was still in production in Brazil (as a diesel model only) at the time; the Bandeirante was discontinued in 2001. Toyoda returned to Japan to join the board of directors giving a high level support to the project. Toyota's flagship design studio, Calty, was then brought in to deliver a fresh interpretation of the FJ40.