What is it?

The Rinspeed iChange looks like a supercar but has a front-hinged canopy so you can get the baby seat in the back easily when it's parked in a tight space. Rinspeed didn't say that's what it's for, but we reckon the maker's inadvertently struck upon people carrier gold: we fully expect the next Espace to be accessed similarly. Actually, the iChange can morph from a one-seater into a three seater - its USP - and it is, of course, electric.

Why's it here?

Because Rinspeed wants you to remember its name. It's the archetypal concept car: ridiculous, very low, accompanied by an impossibly skinny blond girl and less likely to go on sale to the public than Buckingham Palace. It looks great, for sure, but on closer inspection it's actually a cost-cutting mish-mash of components - it has Astra Twin Top rear lights and an Impreza gearbox, for example. It's light though, at a shade over a tonne, so Rinspeed claims a 137mph top speed and a 0-62mph time of around four seconds. And instead of a key you get an Apple iPhone to open it and 'start' the motor. Cool.

Show stopper or floor filler?

In the traditional sense it's a show stopper because it looks mad, has a unique concept (the expanding seating arrangement thing) and is cleaner than a soap shop. It's well constructed too - and more so than most off-kilter makers, Rinspeed has a tradition of actually making its sci-fi stupidity work: the sQuba, for instance, which really did go underwater without sinking forever and drowning its occupants. Whether the iChange will form a platform for a truly malleable all-purpose car (coupé to people carrier), as Rinspeed hopes, is debatable though.

Mark Nichol - 5 Mar 2009