Concept cars driving us back to the future

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to draw visitors to a manufacturer’s stand at an auto show, it’s the “concept car” – outlandish design studies often point to the company’s future direction of travel.

Some designs are flights of fancy with absolutely no hope of going into production, others are advanced designs for models that find their way into auto showrooms within months, often as a result of audience approval at the show.

Now a new book examines some of the most dazzling creations – all from the 1960s – written by journalist Richard Heseltine.

Lovingly searched and lavishly photographed, “Yesterday’s Future, Sixties Concept Cars” features over 350 period archive photos, and catalogs nearly 200 model cars, year after year, over the decade.

Putting the philosophy behind the concept cars – “Caution equals cowardice. Innovative cars, dream cars, call them what you like, meant to break molds and push envelopes” – this charming coffee table-style book roars to life with a look at why the genre exists.

It shows that while many model cars are “one-week wonders” that are quickly forgotten when the show closes, others cross continents and become “media darlings” in the process, some even taking on “saint status”.

However, author Richard Heseltine says, everything is a “subtype of automobile, where function does not necessarily follow form”. He can say it again.

The first car out of the ordinary in this attractive heavyweight book is the PininFarina X, designed by Professor Alberto Morelli, and defended by Batista ‘Pinin’ Farina himself – and very much like a Rocket. Powered by a 1,089 cc Fiat engine, it was very streamlined and claimed to have a top speed of 90 mph. “The X did not spark a design revolution, much to the disappointment of its makers,” Heseltine comments. At least it was a more practical offering than the 1960 Curtiss-Wright 2500 “Air Car” (see above), powered by two 180-horsepower Lycoming engines, one at the front and one at the rear. As the author asks; When is a car not a car? When hovercraft are… ‘.

By 1961, the darling of the auto show circuit was the Chevrolet Corvier Sebring Spyder, a dramatic-style convertible with high performance (above). It never took off, however, and GM never took off emotionally about show cars. Sebring followed in 1962, with a wrecked Ford on a Mustang (below), a Mustang 1, with futuristic pop-up headlights, a retractable number plate, fixed seats, adjustable pedals, and a telescopic steering wheel.

By 1965, one of the stars of the conceptual automobile world was the grotesquely designed Fissore Aruanda (below), designed by Brazilian architecture student Ari de Rocha. Designed to run on a petrol engine or on batteries, the “one box” car was intended as a city car, with plenty of interior space inside a compact, square-shaped body. Unfortunately, the high ‘belt line’ made getting in and out improper, while huge glass windows and doors mean it heats up quickly indoors, in the sun.

The star of the auto show by 1968 was the Bertone Alfa Romeo Carao, a bright green wedge-shaped design with vertically opening doors.

The book concludes with two “two-passenger” vehicles—honestly predicting the current trend of travel—in the form of GM’s XP-511, XP-512, and XP-833, the latter of which is a plug-in hybrid vehicle aimed at urban dwellers.

As Heseltine points out, some of the cars registered in Yesterday’s Future have achieved legendary status, while also predicting the future in terms of car designs yet to come. He says others have failed a lot

Even more impressive, however, is the review of the book and the identification of trends and predictions that eventually came true, giving rise to the ideas, looks, and technology that have crept into the cars we drive today.

Porter Press International has published ‘Yesterday’s Future, Sixties Concept Cars’, priced at £45.