BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, Gold Chrome

Since its reveal in June 2008, the GINA has lived as a museum piece. Its base is the BMW Museum in Munich, and in 2014 BMW sent it to Atlanta for 'Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas' at the High Museum of Art, an exhibition that ran from May to September of that year. It made an obvious candidate: a two-seat roadster on Z8 underpinnings whose body is fabric stretched over a movable frame, whose headlamps open like eyelids, and whose features appear only when they are needed. Few concept cars have questioned the basic materials of the automobile so directly.

This example takes the idea of a reflective surface to its extreme: a mirror-like gold chrome that turns the GINA's tensioned curves into bands of gold and near-black, depending on what they reflect. The white and light grey cabin, white-rimmed steering wheel and stacked dials give the eye somewhere to rest, while the mirrors on their stalks are chromed to match the body. Split-spoke wheels, paired tailpipes and a carbon-weave diffuser complete the lower body. The plaque on its stitched grey base marks it as one of 7. Built at 1:18.