Team-BHP - Fabric Car - The BMW GINA Light Visionary Model revealed

BMW GINA Light Visionary Model

Shape-shifting concept car made from cloth.

BMW just unveiled its latest design philosophy — via a radical concept car — that will sure to raise some eyebrows in the automotive industry. Touted as the "game changer" for the "development of tomorrow's mobility," the new concept centers around the GINA principle, for Geometry and Functions In "N" Adaptions. What this means is the ability for BMW to think outside the box and innovate maximum ideas with mininum amount of the usual constraints associated with car design.

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Is this the car of the future? BMW builds roadster made from cloth

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:36 AM on 13th June 2008

A car covered with cloth is something you would associate with the Flintstones, not the cutting edge of 21st century automotive design. But BMW's latest concept car is exactly that - and it can change shape at the touch of a button. The Gina - which at first glance looks like any other flashy sports car - is encased in fabric instead of metal panels.

Stretch limo: BMW's latest concept car has a cloth skin instead of metal

Open the door and the slinky fabric creases and wrinkles like skin. Turn on the headlights and the covers peel up like giant eyelids - designed to make the sporty roadster more aerodynamic. And its seamless skin - a single piece of durable fabric - can be morphed at the flick of a switch to suit its owner's mood, offering an aggressive or classic look.
BMW's Christopher Bangle said: 'This revolutionary solution opens up new design and production potential. The outer skin can move and do things a metal skin couldn't do.' The German car maker's pioneering vehicle is based on the chassis of a BMW Z8.

Open sesame: The car doors wrinkle and the bonnet opens like a doctors' bag

Its skin is made of a silver expansion-resistant textile which stretches across movable metal wires controlled by hydraulics. The Gina (Geometry and Functions In Adaptions) has no bonnet, roof or boot.

Instead, a single sheet of cloth is layered over its frame, cocooning the driver in the ultra-modern cabin. Movable parts are controlled by hydraulics operated from a driver's console 'The high-precision fit of the material to the metal mesh also allows surface changes without slackening the tension, a spokesman said. It has a major impact on the interaction between driver and car and enhances it by offering a variety of entirely new options.'

Shut eye: Fabric 'eyelid covers the headlights

There is no need to lift the bonnet to get a look at the engine of this flexible motor - it opens from the centre like Hulk Hogan tearing off his T-shirt. Opening and closing is similar to the mechanism on a doctor’s traditional medical bag, where clip-lock fasteners are held together in the middle by a rail.

Eye see: The piercing beam of the lamp is revealed

That is until it rips. Gina won't be coming to showrooms anytime soon, but BMW hopes the overall design philosophy will rub off on some of its future models. In the meantime, you can see the car in the flesh at the BMW museum in Munich.

Source: Home | Mail Online