1978 79 80 Buick Regal Sport Coupe Brougham Lh Driver Taillight Tail Light Trim on 2040-parts.com

The no-show cars: a reader rant on mad concepts

Instigated by Harley Earl at General Motors in the late 30s with the quaintly named Buick Y-Job, show cars, or concept cars, were presented to an excited public eager for new things. As the world recovered from a depression and then a war, these vehicles pointed to a better future that many people believed in, including the people who produced them. And, although many of the concept cars of the 50s, with their Jetsons plexiglass roofs and notional nuclear powered engines seem ludicrous now, in their time they weren’t that cynical.

Mitsubishi Global Small Concept (2011) at 2011 Geneva motor show

Mitsubishi will show this new Global Small Concept car at the 2011 Geneva motor show this spring. It's one of 12 vehicles on show at the Mitsubishi stand and previews the Japanese car maker's vision for future small cars. The Global Small Concept in fact forms the basis for a new supermini coming in March 2012.

Bonkers Renault Twizy EV on sale at £6,690 +video

Renault Twizy EV - now on sale in the UK The Renault Twizy – a four wheel EV Scooter – has gone on sale in the UK this week at £6,990 plus £45 a month battery hire. To try and make electric cars do what conventional cars can do is a pointless task; it’s just not possible, certainly without quantum leaps in battery technology which, despite endless claims to the contrary, seems highly unlikely. But that doesn’t mean electric vehicles don’t have a place – they do.