Cars
BMW’s Shape-shifting Car is a Thing of Beauty
BMW GINA Light Visionary Model is still lightyears ahead of other vehicular designs.
One of the most eye-catching and legitimately futuristic-looking car concepts is undoubtedly BMW’s GINA Light Visionary Model.
Originally showcased in 2008, this concept vehicle isn’t just a whacky design with out-of-the-box edges and a high-tech silhouette, but actually features a fully -functional, shape-shifting body.
This is achieved by the GINA Light Visionary Model having an almost seamless outer skin, a flexible textile cover that stretches across a moveable substructure. Essentially, the car has a fabric outer layer that can be manipulated using mechanisms underneath.
The special, highly durable and extremely expansion-resistant fabric material stretches across the two-seater roadster and offers designers a significantly higher level of freedom of design and functionality. This revolutionary solution opens up new design, production and functionality potential.
The most striking example of this is the headlight design. In normal position, when the headlights are not active, i.e. when there is no necessity to illuminate the road, they are hidden under the special fabric cover. As soon as the driver turns on the lights, the contour of the front end changes. Activated by the metal structure that lies beneath it, the previously closed fabric cover opens to the right and left of the BMW kidney grille and reveals the BMW double headlights.
Another great example of how the GINA Light Visionary Model uses this technology to display a function that corresponds to the opening of the hood in conventional vehicles. The material opens at the centre of the engine cover and can be folded to the far right and left along an opening line that is approximately 0.5 meters long, to allow the driver or mechanic access to the service points in the engine.
There are a host of other neat features with the GINA Light Visionary Model, and while some of the technology hasn’t found its way into other BMW vehicles as of yet, the concept is still being used as a reference point for some of the German brand’s other innovations in the industry.