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June 11, 2008
This BMW feels like silk
I've never been a fan of BMW's aesthetics (ducks from fanboys throwing rocks) but their GINA Light Visionary Model concept provides a peek into what future advance materials may mean for the proverbial automobile. Instead of typical sheet metal, this vehicle is covered in a flexible, super strong, memory retention textile stretched across a frame.
Various aspects of the vehicle's substructure can move via electo-hydraulic controls, dynamically morphing the skin. For example when headlights are turned on, fabric stretches open to reveal LED lights. BMW envisages a future where rigid body panels are a thing of the past. Today's cars are designed to absorb impacts in their frames, not sheet metal. Switching to a textile base shell significantly reduces body weight which improves performance and efficiency.
This is exactly the type of thinking I want to see from industries that shape so much of the future. Not to sound cliche but BMW thought "outside the box" and totally hit a home run IMO.
More pics after the jump.
Posted by tranism at 12:49 AM | Permalink
Comments
I always admired the Chris Bangle´s work for BMW design language. This concept idea for a new body shape material goes beyond a good styling.
Posted by: Danilo Kalil at June 11, 2008 5:35 PM
Amanzingly, this state of the art, sustainable friendly idea of covering a car with a skin like surface is hardly new, at least in aeronautics! Since Otto Lillienthal, with is glider designs (with the wings covered in cloth), to the early bi-planes of the 1st World War, not forgetting the very similar tensile silk-like surface over metal canvas of Zeppelin's Hindenburg; all of these early concepts precede this BMW concept-car.
This, by any means lessens the effort and work of Chris Bangle, by the contrary, it validates it!
Posted by: Paulo Ricardo at June 26, 2008 6:19 AM