17 definitive concept cars feature in new Atlanta exhibition

Atlanta's High Museum of Art is gearing up for the opening of a new exhibition featuring some of the world's most influential concept cars.

Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas runs from 21 May to 7 September and includes 17 concept cars – and associated drawings and models – from the 1930s to the 21st Century.

The aim of the exhibition is to demonstrate how these vehicles shifted the notion of The Car from that of a purely functional device to an embodiment of future possibilities. If only that were still true of today's 'concepts'.

"The concept cars presented in ‘Dream Cars' demonstrate how design can transcend the present and offer new paths and opportunities for the future," says Sarah Schleuning, exhibition curator. "While these cars were never mass-produced, they shaped the future of the automotive industry by challenging the notion of what is possible, technologically and stylistically."

Highlights include everyone's favorite concept car (for good reason) the 1970 Bertone Lancia Stratos Zero, three GM Motorama cars – Firebird 1 XP-21 (1954), Buick Centurion (1956) and Le Sabre (1951) – right up to the 2001 BMW GINA Light Visionary Model.

If you do visit, be sure to send us your photographs, or at least a copy of the exhibition's accompanying 160-page catalog.

By Owen Ready