BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, Midnight Blue

The GINA spent a long time out of sight. Work began in 2001, and BMW kept the project from public view for some seven years before revealing it in June 2008. The concept originated with Fernando Pardo, lead designer at BMW Group DesignworksUSA, and was developed within the design organisation led by Chris Bangle. Pardo later explained that BMW created GINA 'to challenge conventional automotive design and manufacturing techniques', a brief it answered by replacing the metal body with fabric stretched over a movable frame, with headlamps that open like eyelids and a spoiler that rises from beneath the skin. The finished car went on to be displayed at the BMW Museum in Munich.

Midnight blue metallic, dark enough to read almost black in shadow but alive with blue flake in the light, covers this example, with a white and light grey cabin that stands out brightly against it. The white-rimmed steering wheel, the stacked dials and the grey console are clearly modelled, and outside the open headlamps, chrome-ringed kidney grilles and paired tailpipes catch the light above a carbon-weave diffuser. The plaque on its stitched grey base marks it as one of 7. Built at 1:18.