| Design Challenge | LA Auto Show 2007 | Mercedes-Benz SilverFlow |
Imagine a car that can be a highly aerodynamic high-speed cruiser, a short wheelbase city run-around, a long and capacious transport vehicle or a wide and sporty two-seater - all in one.
A far cry from Citroen's Pluriel concept - good in theory, but shocking in practice - Mercedes has given us a glimpse of such a car that could exist 50 years from now, capable of 'morphing' into any shape you want depending on what you need it for.
Called the Mercedes-Benz SilverFlow, the car was designed for the
Los Angeles Design Challenge, now in its fourth year of competition, with the brief being to create 'Robocar 2057', combining cutting edge vehicle technology and Artificial Intelligence. And so, at its Advanced Design Centre in Irvine, California, Mercedes-Benz has developed a two-dimensional computer-graphic design, with clear inspiration taken from Grand Prix cars of the 1930s.
With its thin wheels and elongated cabin in 'Highway Mode', the SilverFlow certainly looks like a racer. Yet because the concept's form is made up of billions of microscopic metallic particles, its shape is never truly fixed and can be transformed by small magnetic fields at the press of a button. The flexible metallic particles also mean dents and scratches can be quickly rectified. Although silver and gold in concept form, Mercedes says any colour scheme would be possible.
What is most amazing of all however is that the micro-metallic layers of the vehicle can be compacted into an easily storable pool of matter.
Unfortunately, as yet the SilverFlow exists only on a computer screen. But should such technology ever see the light of day, the car industry could become a highly individualised business indeed, with customers telling manufacturers what
they would like their car to look like. The possibilities are, literally, endless.
Until then however, we wait rather impatiently. Now, where's my old maths lesson supercar sketches?
Kyle Molyneux - 21 Nov 2007