Sci/Tech BMW Builds a Shape-Shifting Car Out of Cloth

[The Helper]

Concept cars give automotive designers a chance to let their imaginations run wild, often with outlandish results. But even by that measure, BMW has come up with something as strange as it is innovative -- a shape-shifting car covered with fabric.

Instead of steel, aluminum or even carbon fiber, the GINA Light Visionary Model has a body of seamless fabric stretched over a movable metal frame that allows the driver to change its shape at will. The car -- which actually runs and drives -- is a styling design headed straight for the BMW Museum in Munich and so it will never see production, but building a practical car wasn't the point.

Chris Bangle, head of design for BMW, says GINA allowed his team to "challenge existing principles and conventional processes."

More here.

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]kTYiEkQYhWY[/YOUTUBE]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYiEkQYhWY

 

[Myzteryz]

That car is hot.
Wish they would go deeper into this kind of technology instead of putting it into a museum.

 

[konerboy]

That car is hot.
Wish they would go deeper into this kind of technology instead of putting it into a museum.

there isn't a solid material that can bend like that, and go back to normal again.

 

[Knight7770]

there isn't a solid material that can bend like that, and go back to normal again.

Evidently not...

 

[monoVertex]

After seeing the opening in the hood, I see how GINA must be pronounced.

Posted by: cartouche | Jun 10, 2008 12:34:47 PM

LOL!

 

[sqrage]

there isn't a solid material that can bend like that, and go back to normal again.

It's fabric...


@Smith

That's hilarious, some people's imaginations amaze me. :]

 

[EatShrooms]

What a great concept. I would rather have the headlights underneath the cloth though, and for the rear lights to be lcd, so it has a sleeker feel rather than a big LED look. Also, I could imagine the downsides, like the car getting stained easily by rainwater.

http://jalopnik.com/395588/bmw-gina-light-visionary-model-revealed-creepy for a better quality video

 

[esb]

Or someone slashing your car open... at least it's not the tires...

 

[EatShrooms]

Or someone slashing your car open... at least it's not the tires...

I was thinking that too, but maybe they could sow it up?

Oh god what if you get in an accident, hah.