BMW has turn up with something as eccentric as it is inventive a shape-shifting car covered with basics.


Instead of steel, aluminum or even carbon fiber, the GINA Light creative Model has a body of seamless fabric expanded over a movable metal frame that allows the driver to change its shape at will. The car - which actually runs and drives - is a styling design headed straight for the BMW Museum in Munich and so it will never see production, but building a practical car wasn't the point.


Chris Bangle, head of design for BMW, says GINA allowed his team to "challenge existing principles and conventional processes."


"It is in the nature of such visions that they do not necessarily claim to be suitable for series production," company officials said in introduction the car Tuesday. "Rather, they are intended to steer creativity and research into new directions."