Concept

The Mazda HR-X2 Hydrogen Concept

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Unveiled at the 1993 Tokyo Motor show and now is on display at the Mazda Museum in Hiroshima Japan, the HR-X2 concept car featured a Hydrogen rotary engine. This car adopted metal-hydride to carry hydrogen fuel safely. Although range was only 150 miles a tank full it was considered a breakthrough with the new hydrogen fuel. The range was affected by the level of safety equipment required to transport the explosive fuel. Performance was as good as a normal family sedan. The body was also an environmental wonder with all of it being recyclable.

The Toyota PM for Personal Mobility

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Toyota has recently made a few interesting personal travel vehicles as concept show cars and the PM is no exception. Toyota’s vision is to join vehicles together as a mobile community communicating wirelessly with one another in an effort to assist safety and ease congestion and work in a series using auto pilot. The car even has emotions with led technology changing colour when the vehicle is in a particular mood. The cabin is built for one person and at lower speeds and for exit and entry to the vehicle the cabin is more upright like the photo we took at Toyota’s massive MegaWeb in Tokyo. When the vehicle is traveling at higher speeds the carriage lies back more giving it a more racing feel. The vehicle features a electric engine and is steered using a joystick. To enter the vehicle the whole bonnet and windscreen lift open a bit like a cocoon. The turning circle is rather impressive being able to do a donut in 1.2 metres. It will be interesting to see how long it will be before we are all driving around in these weird vehicles.

Chevy Camaro Coupe Show Car

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This year’s Melbourne Motorshow in Australia premiered the Chevrolet Camaro Coupe show car which is a glimpse of great things to come from the huge US automaker. The vehicle was actually designed in Melbourne by Holden who have the task of designing the new rear wheel drive muscle car. The final product is expected to have many of the design cues that the show car proudly possesses when it rolls of the production lines in Canada some time in 2009. The car will feature some of the underbody and mechanicals used in Australia’s Holden Commodore which is the country’s biggest selling car and exported to world markets including the Middle East, Asia and to the USA as a Pontiac GTO.

Citroen’s C-Buggy concept

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Citroen has always been at the forefront of innovative automotive design and the C-Buggy concept car which made its public debut at the Madrid Motor Show is no exception. This modern slant on the beach buggy crossed with a speedster really turned heads. The mechanicals are also quiet impressive the vehicle features a 173 horsepower high pressure direct injection twin turbo diesel engine and a 6 speed electro hydraulic transmission. Citroen has no plans to bring the C-Buggy into production but many of the exciting design features will appear in future products for the brand. The vehicle was based an earlier concept car Citroen displayed at the Bologna Motor Show a year earlier an our photo was from the Paris Motor Show, this car was more of a city based two seater another very stylish vehicle.

For more information: http://c-buggy.citroen.com/

VW concept car GX 3

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This weeks weird car of the week is the VW concept car the GX 3. More motorbike meets car, the 92kw 3 wheel roadseter takes 5.7 sec to go from 0 to 100 klm. the 1.6 litre 4 cyl engine supplies power to the rear wheel via a 6-speed transmission and chain drive. The car made its premier at the Los Angeles Motor Show and was actually designed at the VW Design Centre in California, with the US in mind.  At launch VW had plans to take this model further and hopefully bring something like it into market. They were hoping it would sell at around $17000.