BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, Dark Slate Grey

The GINA has no body panels in the usual sense. In place of sheet metal, BMW stretched polyurethane-coated Lycra taut over a frame of aluminium wire and flexible carbon-fibre struts, then let electric motors and hydraulic actuators move that frame from within. Shift a strut and the surface shifts with it, the fabric neither slackening nor tearing. Begun in 2001 and revealed in June 2008, the result is a roadster with almost no shut lines: apart from the door openings, the body reads as one continuous surface, its contours free to change in a way pressed steel never could.

This piece is finished in a dark slate grey metallic with a fine, visible flake, which makes the cabin all the more striking: seats, door cards and the steering-wheel rim are trimmed in orange, set against grey lower panels and a stack of three round dials in the centre console. Outside, the slim headlamps, the twin kidneys, the split-spoke wheels with BMW centre caps and the paired tailpipes set into a carbon-weave diffuser are all crisply picked out. The black plaque on its stitched grey base carries the BMW roundel and marks it as one of 7. Built at 1:18.