BMW's shape-shifting sports-car

STRETCHY: The BMW Gina concept vehicle trades metal for a stretchable fabric that can change into different shapes.

Relevant offers

Motoring

Red Edition a special Lexus Mazda's BT-50 is a beaut ute Blue skies smiling at Mazda 3 Police U-turn on speeding tolerance Living with Mini's tiny new model Son smashes dad's loaned classic car into sea After 50 years Cubans can now buy new cars Olympic Minis to celebrate 2012 Games Fiat spins SUV off the 500 Around the track in M-badged BMWs

BMW has revealed a radical shape-shifting roadster concept that has been the inspiration behind its controversial car designs - and will also influence the German brand's future vehicles.

The Gina Light Visionary Model is a dramatic-looking two-seater sports car that swaps traditional sheetmetal for a near-seamless, stretchable fabric that can contort into different shapes.

The special waterproof and temperature-resistant "hybrid" fabric is draped over a high-strength metal wire structure that features a series of carbonfibre and steel-mesh struts in various locations.

The driver can change the roadster's exterior design by using switches to activate these electro-hydraulically controlled sections.
 
The headlights, for example, are hidden until switched on, when the fabric at the front of the car prises apart on either side of the signature double-kidney grille to reveal the double lamps.
 
Indicator and tail-lights simply shine through the translucent fabric cover.
 
If the engine needs to be accessed, the bonnet can be unzipped down the middle to create a half-metre-wide gap.
 
Some body changes are automatic. For improved aerodynamics at higher speeds, the Gina roadster will generate extra downforce by deploying a rear spoiler.
 
The two-seater research car isn't just responsible for BMW's controversial convex-concave (‘flame surfacing') design language on current models. The two-seater's minimalist interior also led to the polarising iDrive menu controller system.
 
BMW says iDrive was spawned from one of the Gina's principles - of "displaying only functions to the driver that are relevant to the individual driving situation".
 
The Gina roadster's steering wheel and instruments are even tucked away to allow the driver easier access. Only once the driver is ensconced do the steering wheel and instruments move outwards and the seat (and headrest) adjust automatically for the optimum driving position.

While pictures and details of the two-seater concept have only just been released, the car actually dates back to 2001 - according to overseas media invited to the car's unveiling.

It's also reported that the Gina research concept sits on the platform of the Z8 roadster that last graced roads in 2003 (sold only in limited numbers as a left-hand-drive collector's car in Australia).
 
The Gina's shape-shifting exterior can certainly be seen in BMW's 2001 X Coupe concept car - which debuted designer Chris Bangle's polarising ‘flame surfacing' design language - as well as current production models such as the Z4 (most obviously) and 1-Series.
 
The Gina Light Visionary Model is effectively a concept car behind a concept car. BMW calls it an "object of research", saying that GINA is an abbreviation for "Geometry and Functions in ‘N' Adaptions".
 
Chris Bangle, talking in a promotional video for the Gina research roadster, says the car exists to encourage thinking outside the box not just about how future cars could look but also how they could be built.
 
"This [roadster] started a whole chain of ideas in the company [to the point] that Gina became not just a model, a shape, or just [an issue] about cloth as a [vehicle] skin ... it became a real thinking process about doing things differently," says Bangle. 
 
"Does [a car's outer skin] always have to be made out of metal? Do we always have to make it in the same manner?
 
"In reality, the aspects of crash [safety], [body] stiffness, and ride and handling capabilities can be handled in a spaceframe-type vehicle without the [metal] skin.
 
Bangle says the Gina philosophy is about being flexible and also creating a greater emotional bond between car and driver.
 
"Emotion is really the added function to this [concept]," he says. "Really, we want to achieve a higher emotional plain out of this. Gina should be about the human in the loop."
 
The research car has now been wheeled into the BMW Museum in Munich for display, although the company says the guiding principles of Gina will continue to influence BMW's designs a long way into the future.
 
For a more realistic guide to the designs of BMWs you'll see over the next few years, look to the 2007 Concept CS and recently unveiled M1 Homage supercar.