Every year at the New York Fashion Week, models strut in dresses that are flamboyant, expensive and wildly impractical. The concept cars on display annually at the North American International Auto Show are the same, only made of metal rather than fabric. Hardly anyone ever wears the dresses flashed during Fashion Week. Hardly anyone ever drives concept cars. Market-ability is not the point. The point is to generate excitement about product lines, drawing buyers to stores, or automobile showrooms, to purchase the sensible wares. There?s a fairly good chance, for instance, that you will never drive anything like the Nissan R.D/B.X concept car. The Toyota RIN will not be parking in your neighbourhood anytime soon. But crazy as many concept cars seem, sometimes they are trial runs for ideas that later prove practical.
The distinction of first concept car generally is granted to the 1938 Buick Y-Job, whose streamlining suggested the rockets that then existed only in movies. After WWII, the styling lines of the Y-Job showed up, first, in the lamented 1948 Tucker, and then in mainstream Buick products of the 1950s.
In 1958, Ford Nucleon was announced as a nuclear-powered car. This was during the period when President Dwight Eisenhower advocated ?atoms for peace?. The Nucleon was displayed by Ford at auto shows, but with a key component ? the nuclear reactor ? missing.
Chevrolet?s Corvette was, in the 1950s, something of a loss leader for General Motors. The Corvette would draw men to showrooms. There they would gaze at the car and dream of driving one with a glamorous woman in the passenger seat. They would sigh wistfully and, if all worked as planned, buy an Impala.
Then along came the 1961 Mako Shark concept car, among the first ?holy cow!? car designs. The Mako Shark drew substantial public interest. When the Mako Shark concept car came to market as the 1963 Stingray, it made the Corvette a commercial success.
Probably you?ve never heard of the 1978 Lancia Megagamma, an Italian concept car. It inspired the 1984 Dodge Caravan, which triggered the minivan craze. Half the vehicles that roar past in today?s suburbs owe a debt to the Megagamma.