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BMW Unveils New 'fabric shell' shapeshifting Car
Zilla360
Spaaaace!EarthRegistered User regular
Spaaaace!EarthRegistered User regular
And it's name's not KITT, but GINA. :winky:
http://www.bmw-web.tv/en/video/gbiXGRR/BMW%20GINA%20Light%20Visionary%20Model%3A%20Premiere(Wired,2008) 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."
"It is in the nature of such visions that they do not necessarily claim to be suitable for series production," company officials said in unveiling the car Tuesday. "Rather, they are intended to steer creativity and research into new directions."
Giving Bangle and his team that latitude to design so radical a car "helps to tap into formerly inconceivable, innovative potential" to push the boundaries of appearance and materials as well as functions and the manufacturing process, BMW says.
Bangle and is team actually built GINA -- which stands for "Geometry and functions In 'N' Adaptions" -- six years ago, but BMW kept it under, er, wraps until Tuesday. It's built on the Z8 chassis and has a 4.4-liter V8 and six-speed automatic transmission. BMW says the fabric skin - polyurethane-coated Lycra - is resilient, durable and water resistant. It's stretched over an aluminum frame controlled by electric and hydraulic actuators that allow the owner to change the body shape. Want a big spoiler on the back? Wider fenders? No problem. "The drastic reinterpretation of familiar functionality and structure means that drivers have a completely new experience when they handle their car," BMW says.
Headlights that can wink at you. 8-)
Zilla360 on
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If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
They way the hood opens though maybe Gina was not a good name. What with two ways to pronounce the letter I and all.
I just wanna see that
Also this is "mad ill"
A transformer that turns into a cooler looking car.
Yes.
But man, this is potentially awesome. Would using some sort of canvas in lieu of fiberglass/aluminum/whatever appreciably affect weight? If they could make it virtually tear-proof, that would rock.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
I've seen some stuff on 'Modern Marvels' that would be perfect for this application. Has the strength of steel when a field of something or other is applied to it, and then returns to its normal properties when the field is dissapaited.
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
I imagine Kevlar or synthetic spider thread( that's real right?) is what they would use if this caught on.
Edit how did I forget the best example of a Car that turns into another car
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c188/prizangel/Gadgetmobile-InspectorGadget.jpg
Ugh it's supposed to be the gadget mobile. The link won't work though.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c188/prizangel/Gadgetmobile-InspectorGadget.jpg
XBL: Mercy XXVI - Steam: Mercy_XXVI
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
More than meets the eye...
It's not canvas, it's polyurethane-coated lycra, which is pretty much what people wear when competing in luge, skelton, bobsledding, and speed-skiing competitions.
Historically, the best defense against such an attack has been to shoot the pointy-object-wielding offender before he comes within arms reach.
This will likely remain true for the foreseeable future.
Especially if you have pets or trees.
I'm thinking it'll be a case of putting it in the garage next to your 15 other toys.
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
Just because it's destined to be put in a museum as a one-off piece, doesn't mean it isn't a bad-ass piece of engineering.
Wait are you saying the car has a vibrate function? :winky:
Where's my damn Jeep Hurricane?
I disagree.
Buildings can't be moved, so we need to fit more traffic on existing lanes. Then of course fuel efficiency and environmental issues will lead to altered designs. Networking, robotics, and more automated technology could lead to cars that communicate and drive themselves.
And of course all this could become obsolete once jet-pack technology is improved
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
Until some asshole throws a cigar out of his window and burns a hole in your hood... the cigar then slips in the hole and jiggles around the inner workings igniting things.
Wait, nope.
Still cool.
Yep. That's the point that Bangle was getting at in the first video.
Cool car.
I think the bigger threat is people crashing into the XY plane. In theory, access to the Z axis would exponentially decrease the likelihood of a collision, because there's exponentially more space to exist in.