Audi, VW: Cool entrants for the LA Auto Show design challenge

We found some very cool entrants of Audi and VW design models for the LA Auto Show design challenge. A must see!

Audi Dynamic Space Frame:
I'll have whatever these guys are smoking.

They propose to make the frame a single integrated fluid-electrical component so that 1) all fluid and electrical channels are integrated within the frame; 2) ride suspension control is a series of hollow, fluid-filled chambers whose behavior is controlled by electrical current; 3) It has a hydraulic fluid drive instead of a driveshaft; and 4) Everything's made of a single material.

All these high-falutin' syllables boil down to a) An R and D budget the size of the U.S. Defense Department's quarterly "Pacifying Baghdad" line item and b) instant catastrophic failure the first time your main pump or electrical system blows out, leaving you freewheeling, driveless and brakeless while dropping your chassis to the pavement for an extra-grindy tour of the street surface.

But think how amazing you'll look when it happens.

Volkswagen Nanospyder:
This one completely takes the cake for sheer audacity: "a vehicle capable of being assembled, disassembled and reassembled on a microscopic level."

Of course, it relies on bleeding-edge nanotech theory of the free-form-hey-whatcha-smokin' brand favored by the Audi design team (above).

And it posits a world in which - a) you even want a car made of nanomachines; b) you want a car that will suddenly jump in (with you aboard) to help other nanomachine vehicles form vast, inscrutable underwater structures (see the "panel" illustration at the right); and c) they've overcome the whole gray goo thing.

But - again - very, very pretty.