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

Cool Rides, Tom Thumb’s Car

Cool rides, Sick Toys, Tiny Things December 5th, 2008

This really is one cool ride, kinda a cross between a Soap Box racer and a minivan bred to a ATV. Now if George Clooney has one, the ride must be incredibly cool. Noww, George Clooney is a big boy and I gotta admit I just can’t see him squeezing into that thing and put putting around town. But, George does look ultra cool leaning on the very compact car.

Cool rides in tiny car

Let’s check out the speed of these tiny autos. Here is a drag race between the two rivals, Tesla EV VS. Tango EV. Now, I hear if you get one of these your trips to the gas station may be cut down to a once year chore… if you use it for short distances, it may go as far as once in a car’s lifetime.

Air Car shows that air can be a gasoline alternative

Cool rides September 21st, 2008

Gas prices are still really high. I gotta say I am glad they came down a bit but where I live they are still around 4 bucks a gallon which makes filling up my 13 gallon car a bit expensive at 52 dollars. I hate bitching about the issue since I know many places in the world have been paying such prices for the last 10 years, but here in the U.S., we are not yet used to it.Europeans have always had smaller, more efficient cars and some have even come up with the air car. The air car is a car that is fuelled by compressed air. How cool is that? You would think a car running on air would be as fast or as sick as a donkey car, but seems the manufacturer says that they will go as fast as 68 MPH. Check out these air cars below.. 

air-car-1.jpg 

 air-car-2.jpg

The air car is made by Tata Motors, an Indian company, in collaboration with the French company MDI.  The production models will be sold in Europe and Australia. Seems they thought that bringing it to the U.S. would not be a great idea because of the lower speeds and power… maybe they need to reconsider that since the gas price issue hit the U.S.

The OneCAT, is supposed to be the first production model made for urban and rural driving specifically designed to be driven in congested cities and priced in the $5,100 to $7,800 range has a range of 125 miles before needing more air. Gas stations will have compressors and the charge about $2 per fill-up.

air-car-3.jpg 

 

air-car-4.jpg

 This is the motor that powers the air car

air-car-motor.jpg 

Where do I get one?