BMW materialises a concept car in cloth that challenges our mouldy perception of what a car can be.

Text by Yvonne Xu
Images courtesy of BMW

It is imaginable that when any automaker such as BMW sets out to redefine automotive technology, it would be done with supercars that are on the cutting edge. All razor and sharp, fierce, gleaming, metallic. But by what might be called a stretch of the imagination, BMW has made a car out of spandex. Yes, it is spandex, the elastic synthetic fibre, the fashion of people jumping in aerobics classes, the choice fabric of many superheroes, and perhaps most popularly, the material of Hollywood humour staple featured in so many slapstick scenarios. Well, spandex is now a car. And when someone such as BMW adopts it, it becomes no leg-pulling business.

In fact, this is a supercar we are talking about, the GINA Light Visionary Model. Most superficially, the car is made of an outer skin, a kind of a super spandex that is flexibly and almost seamlessly stretched over a metal substructure. Never mind that this skin is highly durable, never mind that it is expansion-resistant, waterproof, morphic and adaptable to its shape-changing skeleton; because when stripped down to the core of its idea, it is the thought that someone is making a car out of fabric that is awe-inspiring.

Perhaps it is because of our obsession with the super strong. So singularly directed are our engineering efforts towards strength, towards materials like carbon fibre and aluminium alloy, and the perceived safety these materials accord, that there is only reasonable suspicion to think that we could be stuck in a technological rut of sorts. Why, can’t cloth be safe? And at some point in time, the twenty-first century inventor amongst us must be brave enough to say, scratch the metal body out already, let’s move on. BMW Group Design is one such inventor.

By the sheer daring in its use of a fabric-shell, the car becomes less a redressing of the machine than the readdressing of the idea of the machine. To start at the inception, one might be interested to see that car was not born out of a self-assured avant-gardist attitude, the kind fuelled only by arrogant technological hubris. Instead, it is one that harks back to the least civilized and the most natural—the bestial, the fantastical. In its perfectly idle state, the car looks like a sleeping beauty, a dragon hushed in repose if you will. In this sleep mode, when functions such as headlights, rear spoiler, taillights are concealed, the car is without groove, hinge, or any hint of what it might be, or might be capable of; a sculpted entity that gives no clues and is without perceivable function. It invites only curiosity.

Then, it starts to stir from sleep, awakening to life. First, the doors. Like wings that flex muscularly outward and upwards, stretching from a slumber, they crease at the hinge, revealing just a bit of its mobility prowess underneath. Something in the rear extends and lifts; a spoiler sets itself in place. Then with a shift about front, at the sides and behind, rows of little lights beam up from within. To the left and right of the breathing grilles in front, the seamless taut skin then split open into double headlights, these keen sharp eyes sending a bit of a chill down the spine.

There we have it, the concept car—intuitive, animalistic, impressive. What the GINA model represents is not so much a projection of how future cars will look like. Rather, its heralds a world of freedom in which people, unfettered by customs, tradition, or preconceived notions, can dream up better, cheaper, more sustainable, and more creative solutions. It reminds us that we must go back to the beginning with the freest of minds and freshest of eyes, and with the drive of the mad scientist in pursuit of super-human mobility.