One of the last things Chris Bangle designed at BMW before he retired was the car you see above. It was a concept for a modular vehicle with a flexible skin that would literally change shape based on what you were using the car for. It's trunk could change size and shape, and it could hunker down aerodynamically when it was time to go fast.

While obviously just a thought experiment, the flexible skin has me thinking about how to surface the Streetliner. Up to now, I've been planning to use foam and fiberglass to create the outer aerodynamic shell. However, looking at this concept and also remembering some fabric-shelled velomobiles I've seen online, the idea of using a more flexible material as an outer shell has a lot of appeal.

Firstly, it would greatly simplify construction. Since I'm not actually intending to mass-produce this vehicle, there'd be little point in investing the time or expense in creating a mold for a fiberglass body. Then there's the added complexity of creating all the mounting points that join that body to the underlying chassis. Then there's the added hassle of fabricating all the access panels and such needed to access key mechanicals under the body. I shouldn't have to take the whole nose apart just to top off the radiator, for example. Furthermore, creating a fiberglass shell of adequate thickness so as to be good and sturdy would mean adding a not insignificant amount of weight to the vehicle.

Instead, if I were to build a series of essentially ribs over top of the chassis and safety cage, I could wrap the body in some sort of flexible skin. There are a number of durable thermoplastics I could use that would be resistant to weather, stones, bugs an the like out on the road, yet also be heat shrinkable and easy to patch and paint. Hell, you could use model airplane covering. The cloth-style covering is durable, paintable and very lightweight. Access panels could actually be pre-fabricated in framing, rather than having to be cut out of a hard shell. If designed correctly, the whole look would have a great antique aircraft look to it — like dope shrunk canvas over wooden ribs, spars and bulkheads.

Fundamentally, air doesn't really care what a shape is made from. It just needs something to push against. Furthermore, an imperfect shape can still be very aerodynamic if it's smooth enough. Further still, every pound of weight shed from the Streetliner is a pound I don't have to push through the oncoming air. Additionally, I anticipate that building in this method would cost less, take less time, require fewer specialized tools and actually give me a much greater amount of flexibility to change the body shape as needed. Even the wheel pants could be made using this method — likely lessening unsprung weight and greatly simplifying installation. Anybody out there know of other examples of a flexible vehicle skin?

This has me thinking. Why hasn't this happened with cars? I know there's a vibrant kit car community, but the majority of their time seems spent building Shelby Cobra replicas or other poor man's super cars. Why isn't there a kit car equivalent to the LongEZ? Where is that simple, economic, interesting vehicle that almost anybody could screw together and pilot? Maybe the Streetliner is that vehicle. Maybe this project, and others like it, can spur a small revolution in transportation where instead of big, heavy boxes of steel, some of us zip around in lightweight composite vehicles that get us back and forth to work. I like the sound of that. Who's with me?

The Black Widow, as it's called, is the winner of the Shell Eco-marathon. Looks the business doesn't it? What's thoroughly amazing is that they did it without any electrical propulsion at all. Just a 3 hp Honda 4-stroke engine no doubt geared to the ceiling. Good stuff. More details here.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

What Seth and Merlin spend most of their time talking about is Seth's most recent book, Lynchpin. More specifically, they talk about the commodity of ideas and the real value of actually shipping whatever it is you make or do. I realized that with the Streetliner, neither the concept nor the design are particularly remarkable. What would make it an amazing would be to actually finish. That's all. Completing the Streetliner at all will be a huge accomplishment. Being literally in the idea business, it's easy to lose site of the fact that success is 99% showing up — that is 99% "shipping" whatever it is I do. Sure, I have to be creative and innovative, but it's all pretty meaningless if I never actually ship anything. If I never get my prototype built, then the actual Streetliner is sure to never happen. With that in mind, it's time to get back in gear. Thanks guys, that was just the push I needed.

Via Mr. La Vardera, these fantastic little modernist toys have me wanting to part with about $130 I need not spend. You can find them here and here.

Fellow MINI enthusiast Lavardera shared this fabulous site about Cycle Karts — a whole class of DIY automobile that I didn't know about before now. Fantastic stuff. I especially love this one.

I'm checking all my coat pockets and couch cushions for $100 so that I can buy this. This little pedal car more than anything else has inspired my design thinking for Project Streetliner. That it's available for purchase at so reasonable a price is just thrilling!

Part of my inspiraton for this project is classic pedal car design. Saw this one at the local hobby shop.