BMW Builds a Shape-Shifting Car Out of Cloth
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." L33tdawg: This is by-far one of THE coolest things I've seen this year! Make sure you check out the Youtube video.
