BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, Silver Chrome

BMW's list of what the GINA did without reads like an inventory of a car body: front apron, bonnet, side panels, doors, wheel arches, boot lid and rear deck, all replaced by four pieces of fabric stretched over a moving wire frame. The aim was a surface with almost no seams, where functions such as the lamps, the engine access and the spoiler appear only when called for and then disappear. Developed under Chris Bangle from 2001 and revealed in June 2008, it showed how much of a car's appearance comes from the joins between its parts, simply by taking them away.

Rendered in mirror-finish silver chrome, this piece turns that one-piece fabric body into a moving reflection: each crown and hollow bends the surroundings around it, so the shape is read through what it reflects rather than through colour. Inside, the white and light grey cabin, white-rimmed wheel and stacked round dials sit calmly against all that shine. The headlamps are modelled open beside chrome-ringed kidneys, and the tail carries paired tailpipes in a carbon-weave diffuser. The plaque on its stitched grey base marks it as one of 7. Built at 1:18.