Concept Cars – Sixty Years of Futuristic Automobiles

Cool rides, Crazy Cars, concept cars, vintage cars March 15th, 2009

I love concept cars, I love how people design cars that they know are just too out there to ever go into production, but they attract the crowds at the auto shows. Take a look at 6 decades of whacky, crazy and way too cool concept cars.

It’s odd that in 60 years of car companies building concept cars, not much has changed, they always seem really rounded, even when the styles where boxy, and always, very futuristic.

The flyboat, one very early concept that may not have even had any wheels. OK, not really a car, but I love this one.

flyboat early vintage concept car

Nazi Racecar

nazi racecar

 1938 concept Phantom

1938 concept phantom

Another vintage concept car, not sure what is is, but it sure must have been a cool ride back then.

vintage concept car

1950 Futureliner from GM – kinda a bus, wagon and mack truck all rolled into one crazy car.

1950 concept car futureliner

GM vintage concept car

Buick Vintage Concept Cars from the 1950’s

 

buick concept car circa 1950

buick vintage concept car

Vintage Concept Car

 concept-vintage.jpg

1964 GM Stiletto, the look of the future?

64 concept stiletto

1964 future car, not sure what they where thinking here because this is just plain ugly. Most Concept cars look sleek and hopefully cool, no matter what year, this one here looks like a bad Jaws movie coming at you. Jaws may be too cool for this one… OK,  how about a salmon swimming upstream at you? The front end just reminds me of fish… go figure.

 1964 future car

1950ish Model D concept

 1950ish model D

1970 Porsche Tapiro

1980 porsche concept sports car

1980 GM Epcot

 

1980 GM Epcot

1988 GM SunRaycer – Arrival of the solar powered cars? guess we never saw that one happen.

 1988 GM Sunraycer

1989 Solar Car, not made by a large auto manufacturer, I think, But still cool

1989 Solar Car

2005 mercedes hydrogen car

 2005 mercedes hydrogen car

2003 GM Hy Wire Concept

2003 GM Hy Wire

 

Mercedes Benz Formula One

 benz formula concept

mercedes benz concept car

Pontiac Solstice

 pontiac solstice

 Here are a few more recent models

A Suziki Concept SUV from 2007

 suzuki

This one is awsome, this is the Mazda Taiki concept car, reminds me of ocean waves… you can see why I’m sure.

 concept_1-mazda.jpg

 concept_mazda-taiki.jpg

3 wheel car/bike?

three wheel car

Asian Concept from an auto show a few years back

concept Asian car

1970 style Dodge Challenger concept

 dodge challenger concept

The Budweiser Rocket Car of 1979

Alternative Vehicles, Crazy Cars, Sick Toys, concept cars January 19th, 2009

The Budweiser Rocket Car of 1979

budweiser rocket car

I guess this one may have been a bit disappointing, but a goot try none the less.

The Budweiser rocket car was built in 1979 and they planned to breakland speed records with a rocket car that could exceed the speed of sound. The Budweiser rocket car was supposed to be the very first land vehicle to break the sound barrier.

Stan Barrett drove the jet car on Dec. 17, 1979 and the rest is wrapped in controversy.  It seems no one knows if the vehicle broke the sound barrier or not. I must wonder where the speedometer was here, but the rumor is that no sonic boom was heard pointing to maybe, the sound barrier was not broken.