I found a copy of a great old book called Cars That Never Were in a used bookstore, behind a secret door marked with a pair of crossed pistons and reeking of old motor oil and decay. The book is full of interesting prototypes, but one caught my eye especially because of its novel design and engine choice. It’s a 1964…
If a magic horse were to come up to me today and tell me that if I pleasured them, physically, that horse would grant me a wish, I’d have my horse-pleasuring gloves on so fast your eyes would cross and the next thing you know there’d be one satisfied horse, a flash of bright blue light, and me, in 1990s Japan,…
When we look back at the post-WWII automotive designs pouring out of manufacturers, we probably would think of them as “modern” by today’s standards. But at the time, the industry was ready for something fresh, and engineers were ready to deliver. Tons of concept cars showcasing the future appeared at exhibitions…
Arguably one of the most incredible things about the 1950s was the insistence that we could absolutely use this potentially deadly technology in the most wholesome ways to create a really cool car.
There’s something undeniably quaint about the way the industrialized world imagined the future back in the 1950s. Looking at it now, you think less “future” and more “aww, look how retro!” And nothing epitomizes that more than the Astra-Gnome.
There’s a story over at Bloomberg today that highlights the work of an engineer named Zhu Lingyun who believes, if all goes according to plan, he’ll have a two-wheeled electric pod thing on the road in two years. Always two years! Anyway, Zhu’s idea is interesting because it’s actually based off an old Ford concept,…
Underneath this wild Pininfarina-designed body shell sits a Ferrari 512S race car chassis. Built in the early 1970s, this car was toured around the show circuit as a concept for future design elements before it was retired to a life as static art display in the Pininfarina offices. Just four years ago, Ferrari…
In 1970, science fiction was real. We had just landed on the moon, the first Oil Crisis hadn’t hit yet, and it seemed like, just maybe, anything was possible. That’s the world in which the Lancia Stratos HF Zero debuted, the lowest, widest, wildest future-wedge of all. It looked unreal at the time. It looks wilder now.
Back in the 1990s, there was a seemingly endless supply of bonkers concept cars that existed solely to grab attention at auto shows and in the pages of magazines. Some of these concepts were wild enough to end up on childhood bedroom walls, because the street cars weren’t quite exciting enough. When the Mustang Mach…
At motor shows, though usually in Tokyo, automakers from Toyota to Chevy frequently unveil very tiny concepts that, they promise, will definitely be produced some time in the future. Call them pod cars. And yet we still haven’t seen one.
Making a car is expensive, and nobody would want go through the process of building an entire working automobile if they’re not thinking of putting it on sale. And yet here is (or isn’t) the Prodrive P2, an all-wheel drive monster that never even was meant to be bought.
The Beijing Auto Show is on and that means it’s time for luxury carmakers to do what they do best: pontificate about the nature of luxury itself. Maybach took the chance to make a living room. It’s weird.
When we last chatted with you about the Infiniti Q Inspiration concept, we left off with the hope that it would usher in a new era of Infinti production cars. Lord knows Infiniti needs it. And it looks like we’ll be getting some electrified version of it within the next five years.
The Subaru SVX is one of the looniest cars ever put into production: a flat-six luxury coupe with a fighter jet canopy from a company that mostly just sold plain station wagons. But these two sides of Subaru once collided and gave us the Subaru Amadeus. Or, rather, not.
I know that pretty much all of the brands are trotting out electric SUV concepts, but this new Buick Enspire concept thing actually looks pretty sharp. The only crappy thing about it is its name.
Over four years ago, Dubai-based Devel unveiled the Devel Sixteen at the Dubai Motor Show. We were, uh, skeptical that it would actually amount to a real, running car. Mind you, we still are, but there’s a new video that at least shows the thing appearing to run under its own power.
Last week, a Ford patent application appeared on the U.S. Patent And Trademark Office’s website. It was for an interesting new seat pattern in cars, a circular, completely non-aerodynamic design that would also allow for passengers to be facing each other, as if at dinner. Is this design as crazy as it looks? I don’t…
This is the Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo Concept, an all-electric demo car to serve as a race taxi at upcoming Formula E weekends. It should be so much more.
Back in the 1980s, Japan’s carmakers were on a tear to make the most advanced, well-engineered mass produced cars the world had ever seen. Also, they were committed to making the trippiest ads promoting those cars as humanly possible.
This is the 2002 Lincoln Continental concept. Yes, you read that right: 2002. It’s still so good that it not only puts the current Lincoln Continental to shame, but Lincoln should seriously just go ahead and put it into production.
