The driverless car, demonstrated in Las Vegas, offers a vision of the future in which there are no accidents and driving your car is entirely optional. We look back at some of the other great innovations that have contributed to modern day motoring
By Michael Moran
Video report by Holden Frith
Often unfettered by petty distractions like safety, comfort, or economic viability, concept cars are the purest expression of the automobile designer’s art. From Harley Earl’s space-age flights of fancy to the eco-friendly offices on wheels of today we list some of the most innovative, stylish, or plain silly designs of the last seventy years.
1939 Buick Y-Job
Created by Harley Earl, the doyen of automobile designers, The Buick Y-Job was the first real concept car. Earl used it as his personal runabout as well as exhibiting it to get a feel for what the public wanted. Pictures and more information here
1954 Lincoln Futura
The Futura was, almost literally, the last word in fifties automotive excess, featuring microphones to pick up the comments of admiring onlookers as it passed by. The prototype was eventually modified by George Barris and found fame as the original Batmobile. Pictures and more information here
1954 Buick Wildcat 2
With lines that prefigure the classic Corvette, the Buick Wildcat II was a lightweight fibreglass coupe that showed the way towards the cleaner lines that became standard in the 1960s. Picture and more information here
1956 Pontiac Club De Mer
With its low, sleek profile and wildly unnecessary dorsal fin the Club de Mer was an archetypal symbol of the sci-fi fifties. Even better than the full-sized car though was the quarter-scale model which was bought from Pontiac by visionary designer Harley Earl and rebuilt as a pedal car for his grandson. Picture
1956 Buick Centurion
Probably the first car to dispense with a rear-view mirror in favour of closed-circuit television the Centurion was distinguished by its one-piece bubble top that seems to have excercised a considerable influence on Gerry Anderson’s 1960 ‘Supercar’ series. Picture here and more information here
1958 Ford Nucleon
Powered, as the name suggests, by a small nuclear reactor rather than a petrol engine the Nucleon never quite got off the drawing board. Pictures and more information here
1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza GT
With styling that would still stand up today the Corvair pointed the way to modern ideas of aerodynamic design and spelt the end of the exuberant fin shapes of the 50s. Pictures and more information here
1969 Holden Hurricane
The Hurricane incorporated many technological innovations that may seem everyday to today’s driver but were positively out of this world to the motorist of the era. It featured digital instrument displays, sophisticated temperature control air conditioning, automatically-tuning FM radio, and the then revolutionary Pathfinder navigation aid. Like the Buick Centurion a rear-view mirror was dumped in favour of closed-circuit television. Pictures and more information here
1970 Lancia Stratos Zero
With probably the poorest visibility of any saloon car, the Stratos Zero was never destined to be a production road vehicle. The Stratos legacy lived on, though, in a series of highly successful rally cars. Pictures and more information here
1970 Porsche Tapiro
Upping the ante with two sets of gullwing doors the Porsche Tapiro boasted a windscreen raked back almost to the same angle as its bonnet and, if the contemporary publicity is to be believed, a young lady in a bikini with every car. Pictures and more information here
1972 Maserati Boomerang
The Maserati’s ground-hugging profile echoes the Tapiro, while pointing the way even more explicitly to Delorean’s ill-fated, but iconic, DMC-12. Pictures and more information here
1985 MG EX-E
A prescient design that influenced an entire generation of successful sporty roadsters like the Honda NSX, the MG EX-E was considered as the basis for a production car but ultimately sidelined for being ‘too Japanese’. Pictures and more information here
2001 Ford ‘49
The deliciously retro ’49 harked back to a lost era of optimism and opulence in American automobiles. Nothing like its sleek bodywork has been seen outside custom car rallies since the beginning of the fifties but if, for example, you’re outfitting a shadowy agency to investigate UFO sightings, this is the car to buy. Pictures and more information here
2004 Renault Trafic Deck’up
Not so much a car as a tiny room on wheels the peculiarly-named Deck’up had rotating seats and suicide doors on one side, enabling the users (they aren’t really passengers any more) to bring the great outdoors right into the cabin. Pictures and more information here
2004 Nike ONE
In a move that was more than a little conceptual, Nike, who don’t make cars teamed up with the makers of Gran Turismo, who don’t make cars either, to design a car which connects to the driver’s nervous system for optimal integration with the onboard computer. Pictures and more information here
2005 Holden Efijy
Like the Ford ’49 a wildly retro affair with some serious 21st Century technology under the skin. Adjustable ride height controlled by a dash-mounted LCD made this the ultimate Low Rider, which could skim along one inch above the tarmac. Pictures and more information here.
2005 Peugeot Moovie
Like nothing else on the road, André Costa’s 2-seater electric transport pod combined doors and wheels into a huge round ‘space docking port’ to allow passengers to enter and exit through the ‘hubcaps' Pictures and more information here
2006 Saab Aero X
A gloriously stylish ‘mid-life crisis special’ with an imposing motorised canopy instead of doors means that this is one car that nobody will be getting into with a straightened out coat hanger. The ethanol power plant was a nod to growing ecological concerns among car manufacturers in the middle part of the decade. Pictures and more information here
2007 Aston Martin DB-ONE
A chunky, meaty Aston that wants you to know how fast it can go. We’re more than a little surprised that this musclebound beauty hasn’t cropped up in a science fiction movie yet. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you spot it. Pictures and more information here
2057 Mercedez Benz Silverflow
The most ‘concept’ of concept cars – An amorphous sports car that reconfigures itself on the fly for minimal drag. Based not so much on currently available technology as repeated viewings of Terminator 2. Pictures and more information here
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