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The whole point of the concept car is to push the boundaries of design and technology.
But sometimes a car maker or design house doesn’t know when to stop. These are the concept cars that were so over the top that they were never going to reach the road in any form.
Some have gone on to become legends but most were quickly forgotten – which is the best thing that could have happened to them. Let's take a look:
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Bertone BAT3/5/7 (1953)
Bertone created not one but three separate BAT concepts between 1953 and 1955. Designed to explore the possibilities of aerodynamic design, the clue was in the name – BAT stood for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica. At a time when roads were full of designs dating from before the Second World War, these machines must have looked like spacecraft from Mars. PICTURE: BAT 3
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Ghia Selene (1960)
Ghia claimed this was the type of car that we’d all be driving within a decade. Thankfully that never came to pass. Designed by Tom Tjaarda (1934-2017), in this picture the rear-engined Selene is facing to the left.
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Ghia Selene Seconda (1962)
Despite its weirdness, the first Selene made a big impression, and not for just the wrong reasons. As a result Tjaarda was let loose to come up with a sequel. Looking like something out of The Jetsons, the Selene Seconda was also rear-engined and like its predecessor it featured rear-facing back seats.
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Bertone Carabo (1968)
One of the all-time great concepts, the Carabo was based on the Alfa Romeo 33 racer, which meant it packed a V8 in the middle. It also featured coloured glass and butterfly doors, while also being seriously aerodynamic.
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Chevrolet Astro III (1969)
If you’re starting with a clean sheet to design a car, the obvious thing to do is to get the wheel layout spot on, not just close. Nobody told GM's designers though; they put the Astro III's two front wheels next to each other so it looked like a three-wheeler, massively compromising stability. But just look at it!
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Bertone Stratos Zero (1970)
Another turning point in car design, this wasn't the last word in practicality but it pushed the boundaries. It led to Lancia's car of the same name, a replica by Andy Saunders and a part in Michael Jackson's Moonwalker video.
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Pininfarina Modulo (1970)
Pretty much nothing included in the Modulo was usable in a production car, from the canopy to the enclosed wheels. Indeed, the Modulo’s design introduced a mass of problems requiring intricate engineering at great cost.
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Mazda EX-005 (1970)
Proposed specifically as an urban commuter car, the EX-005 offered seating for four, but little in the way of comfort as those seats were of moulded plastic. The weather protection was also pitiful and as far as crash safety was concerned, forget it. However, the rotary/electric hybrid powertrain was far-sighted, if something of a dead end.
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Dome Zero (1978)
It would be hard to pen a design more angular and aggressive than the Lamborghini Countach, but that's what Japanese outfit Dome managed with its Zero concept. The plan was to race at Le Mans; it didn't happen though.
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Ghia Action (1978)
It’s not clear whether the time ran out or the money, but Ghia managed to design just half a car with the Action. Having got off to a great start at the front, the company got as far as the B-pillars then appeared to call time on the project.
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Aston Martin Bulldog (1979)
William Towns (1936-1993) styled some pretty insane contraptions in his time, but this must rate as one of the craziest. It started out as a testbed for Aston Martin, the idea being to produce 25 of them – then common sense prevailed and just the one car was built. It survives and has just undergone a major restoration project.
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Toyota CX-80 (1979)
The CX-80 was intended to offer ample space for a family of four, while taking up less road space than Toyota’s smallest production model, the Starlet. So it’s a shame that it looked as though the CX-80 had been designed by a young child – perhaps wearing a blindfold. This really did represent an all-time low in Toyota’s design.
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Citroën Karin (1980)
The Citroën Karin was the work of Trevor Fiore (born 1937), who presumably had overdosed on Toblerone chocolate at the point that he penned this rather triangular concept. With a central driving position, the driver was flanked by a passenger on either side and behind, McLaren F1-style.
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IAD Alien (1986)
While the Alien was a break from the norm, the key technology it previewed was doomed from the start – that of removable power packs. Still, the Alien succeeded spectacularly in being one of the most jaw-dropping supercars ever created.
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Italdesign Machimoto (1986)
A cross between a car and a motorbike, the Machimoto was intended to provide cheap transport for up to nine people in developing countries – clearly comfort and safety weren’t expected to be too high on the agenda.
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Peugeot Proxima (1986)
In 1986 the fastest, most glamorous Peugeot you could buy was a turbocharged 205 with four-wheel drive. The company's factories churned out the 309, 504 and 604, yet it had the temerity to show cars like the twin-turbo 2.8 V6 Proxima, which packed 600bhp and part-time four-wheel drive.
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Chrysler Voyager III (1990)
Here was an idea divorced from reality. Chrysler's design team came up with a three-seater city car that could be mated to a separate rear pod enabling the Voyager III to become an eight-seater people carrier. How handy.
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Italdesign Columbus (1992)
A luxurious minibus powered by a V12 engine sounds like something very tasty indeed, but when you wrap it up in a bodyshell that looks like a jet aircraft that’s crashed into a people-carrier, suddenly it’s really not so good...
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Renault Zoom (1992)
City cars are often attractive because of their low price, achieved by reducing complexity to the minimum. Clearly nobody told Renault this, because in conjunction with Matra, the French outfit produced perhaps the most complicated small car ever, with complex rear suspension that allowed its wheelbase to be varied according to conditions. Just what the world needed.
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Mitsubishi ESR (1993)
Mitsubishi’s Ecological Science Research concept was a test bed for green technologies. All very laudable, but why should any car be this ugly? From the front the ESR looked okay, but from all other angles it was a tragic mess – the designers initially chose a one-box design, then chickened out at the last minute, going for a notchback.
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Renault Racoon (1993)
Take a helicopter, remove the rotor blades, then fit a set of wheels attached via the most complex suspension system imaginable – and you have the Renault Racoon, which answered a question that nobody had ever asked.
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Toyota Raum (1993)
Toyota billed it as “a practical proposition for the next generation family car” – but thankfully this prediction proved inaccurate. The 1990s threw up plenty of ill-proportioned and forgettably styled cars, but even the worst were rarely as bad as this. Thanks to a ridiculously ill-proportioned waistline, the Raum looked like a goldfish bowl on wheels.
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Dodge Neon Expresso (1994)
The Expresso looked like something driven straight out of a cartoon, with bizarre curves everywhere, from the bodywork to the windows. With a design inspired by “big-city taxis”, the Expresso was billed as a redesign of the family taxi – but with Dodge claiming that “the concept was based on the platform of the fun-to-drive Neon”, you just knew this was a concept that had zero credibility.
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Ford Indigo (1996)
The Indigo didn’t offer even the smallest dose of reality. A racing car for the road, there was no weather protection, nowhere to stow luggage and a 6-litre V12 sitting behind the occupants’ heads to give a 180mph top speed.
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Italdesign Formula 4 (1996)
Italdesign set out with good intentions here – to create an affordable sports car for young drivers. So what a shame this was the result; a horrible mish-mash of old and new that was madly impractical and hideously contrived.
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Heuliez Pregunta (1998)
Perhaps the most tragic of all concepts are those which take a perfectly good car and turn it into something you really wouldn’t want to be seen looking at, never mind sitting in. This horrific confection used to be a Lamborghini Diablo...
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Honda Fuya-Jo (1999)
Shown at the 1999 Tokyo motor show, and a cross between an armoured car and a supermarket trolley, the Fuya-Jo featured a minimal glasshouse plus wheels that looked as though they’d been stolen from a Lego set.
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Honda Neukom (1999)
The Neukom was effectively a greenhouse with wheels. Offering all the style and aerodynamics of a potting shed, the Neukom was "the transporter of an open space for social enjoyment”. Yuk.
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Hyundai FGV-II (1999)
FGV stood for Future Green Vehicle, but you just know by looking at it that if this represented the future of motoring, then walking, cycling and taking the bus would suddenly become very popular. It debuted at Seoul in 1999.
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Rinspeed X Dream (1999)
A truly pointless concept, this was a powerful pick-up that offered little in the way of comfort or protection from the elements, while also coming with its own hovercraft. So a pretty mainstream market then.
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Toyota Cruising Deck (1999)
If you were asked to come up with two types of car at opposite ends of the scale, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’d choose something like a sports car and a pick-up. Try to combine these two car types into one, and you’d be on a hiding to nothing. That didn’t stop Toyota giving it a go though, with its lamentable Celica Cruising Deck.
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Valmet Zerone (1999)
Valmet’s expertise lay in building cars and designing convertible roof systems – not in designing whole vehicles. This proved to be the company’s undoing, because when the wraps were taken off its Zerone concept at the 1999 Geneva motor show, nobody knew whether to applaud or laugh.
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Citroën Osmose (2000)
Citroën said this was “a bold concept which paints a vision of user-friendly vehicle design leading to a new form of relationship between pedestrians and motorists, while addressing the issue of responsible car use". Right.
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Suzuki GSX-R/4 (2001)
Suzuki has started to come up with some mildly interesting vehicles in recent years, but when the GSX-R/4 was unveiled in 2001 the company didn’t really have any truly desirable production models. Power came from a mid-mounted 1.3-litre Hayabusa engine.
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Toyota Pod (2001)
The Pod detected its driver’s pulse and perspiration rate to relax them, by changing the colour of its lighting and wagging its ‘tail’ (an antenna on the back) – which were more likely to wind the driver up than placate them.
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Lexus 2054 (2002)
Created for the 2002 film Minority Report, which was set in 2054, this Lexus confection was supposed to offer a glimpse of what personal transport would look like more than half a century hence. Just 36 years to go…
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Mitsubishi SUP (2002)
It packed five bodystyles and two power sources into one concept, so it’s no wonder the SUP, or Sports Utility Pack, looked somewhat confused. With both petrol and electric powertrains stowed away, plus a mixture of SUV, convertible, MPV, sportscar and family cars, the SUP in theory offered something for everyone. Mitsubishi was hedging its bets as to who would buy it; in reality the answer would have been nobody.
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Peugeot H20 (2002)
The 206 used to be one of Peugeot’s smallest cars, while most fire trucks are the size of a small house for obvious reasons. So how successful do you think it would be to marry the two together – a fire truck based on the Peugeot 206? If you needed to put out the fire in an ash tray you might be okay – but anything larger might just need a vehicle with a bit more stature.
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Rinspeed Presto (2002)
Rinspeed has built one madcap concept after another. Always packing some completely pointless technology or design feature, the Presto’s USP was an adjustable wheelbase. The Presto was intended to offer the best of all worlds; a compact car for the city and a more spacious one for longer runs. The reality of course was that such technology was a complete non-starter because of its cost and complexity.
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Dodge Tomahawk (2003)
It may look like a motorbike, but the Tomahawk actually featured four wheels. But who would strap themselves to a four-wheeler with the stability of a motorbike, capable of around 300mph thanks to its 8.3-litre V10 borrowed from a Viper?
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Audi RSQ (2004)
Another car that was the star, the RSQ was created for the film I, Robot. As with Minority Report, this film was set in the future, in 2035. Instead of wheels the RSQ rolled along on spheres, while there were butterfly doors. Unlike so many of the cars featured in this story, the RSQ clearly reflected its creator’s production car design language of the time.
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Peugeot Hoggar (2004)
If you were asked to name twin-engined production cars you wouldn't get far, so what Peugeot hoped to achieve with this is unclear. With a pair of 180bhp 2.2-litre diesel engines, to give 4WD, this was completely pointless while the roofless car was more than a little impractical.
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Fiat Oltre (2005)
Fiat was on the verge of bankruptcy when the Oltre was unveiled; seeing this, that's no surprise. Here was a company renowned for its small cars, trying to outdo Hummer. And we all know what became of Hummer.
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Mercedes Bionic car (2005)
Fish are aerodynamic and can be attractive and colourful. And then there’s the box fish, which is possibly the ugliest creature ever devised by nature. So guess which fish Mercedes decided to model its Bionic Car on?
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Nissan Pivo (2005)
Ludicrously over-complex, Nissan’s engineers took everyday items from the modern car and re-engineered them at what appeared to be maximum cost, to come up with a car that could never be economically viable.
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Peugeot Moovie (2005)
Billed as an agile and environmentally friendly city car by its designer André Costa, a full-scale model of the Moovie was built, but for some reason Peugeot never committed to making the car available in its showrooms.
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Rinspeed Senso (2005)
The Senso took into account the driver’s pulse and driving behaviour, then adjusted the music, interior lighting and even the fragrances to suit. As a result, it could soothe a frustrated driver or pep up a tired one. How useful.
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Toyota Aygo DJ (2005)
Less of a car and more of a music machine, the Aygo was re-engineered to become a mobile DJ mixing desk so it was great for making music but rubbish for getting from A to B. Which defeats the purpose of a car really.
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Venturi Astrolab (2006)
The Astrolab was effectively an even more extreme version of the Eclectic, as it was even more focused on harnessing solar energy while dispensing with the useful stuff like carrying people in anything resembling comfort.
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Venturi Eclectic (2006)
A concept so far removed from reality that it was in another galaxy, the Eclectic produced its own power, with in-built solar panels and a wind turbine. The problem was, it couldn’t generate enough power to be truly usable.
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Volkswagen GX3 (2006)
When you think how conservative Volkswagen usually is, it seems crazy to think that the company seriously considered putting the GX3 into limited production. Sadly the outfit then came over all rational and ditched it.
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Rinspeed Oasis (2017)
Bonkers Swiss company Rinspeed unveiled its Oasis at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, and like all good commuter cars it featured its own garden built into the dashboard. Capable of driving itself, the Oasis also featured a temperature-controlled pizza compartment – of course.
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BMW i-inside Future (2017)
To be fair to BMW, the i-inside Future was created to show off new technologies rather than to give an indication of what a future BMW might look like. A touch-sensitive holographic dash display was a key feature alongside an interior designed for life on the move without having to do any driving, thanks to a full suite of autonomous technologies.
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Renault EZ-Ultimo (2018)
We all know the term ‘living room on wheels’ but this really is one – and better still, it drives itself so you can all party en route next to your, er, party. It’s 5.8 metres long and is designed for private super-luxury travelers of the future.
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