BMW GINA Flexible Skin Car

GINA is a roadster concept on which the usual body sheet metal found on production vehicles such as bonnet, side panels and doors have been all replaced with a special, flexible, highly durable and extremely expansion-resistant fabric material that stretches across a metal wire structure.


READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP!!

A number of elements of the substructure are actually moveable and the driver can shift them by means of electro and electro-hydraulic controls resulting to a change the shape of the outer skin. For example, when the headlights are not active they are hidden under the special fabric cover. As soon as the driver turns on the lights, the contour of the front ends changes revealing the twin-headlights –just like a human being opens his eyes.

BMW and its Head Designer Chris Bangle (rightfully) support that in reality, the aspects of crash and stiffness and ride handling can all be handled in a spaceframe type vehicle entirely without the skin. So why should designers and for that matter, car manufactures, restrict themselves in the use of common materials for the outer body? -Continued after the jump

Why not use a flexible textile cover that could not only open an all-new world in car designing but also save money and consume less resources and energy than previous solutions. It goes without saying that a concept vehicle is one thing and putting it into production a totally different story, but we must confess that we like the innovative thinking of those Bavarian folks –ok, Chris Bangle is American.


























































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