The driverless car and 20 other great concept cars

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/features/article3237606.ece

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.

Note: the next 10 Concept Cars that the website www.Timesonline.com featured can be found at the next post.