Tag Archives: Automotive

This Volkswagen Concept Gives Front and Rear Passengers Completely Different Cars to Ride In

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Most autonomous vehicle concepts ask the same question: what do you do with the interior when nobody needs to drive? The answer is almost always some variation of a lounge on wheels, seats rotating to face each other, a table unfolding from nowhere, everyone pretending they’re on a train. Seoul-based designer Seonmyeong Woo looked at that answer and decided it was too blunt. His Volkswagen ID. Counterpoint Concept, developed between January and May 2024, starts from a more interesting premise: what if the two rows of a car don’t need to want the same thing at all?

The project is built around a Level 5 autonomous driving scenario, which is the SAE designation for full, unconditional self-driving with no human input required under any circumstances. At that level of autonomy, the designer argues, the probability of accidents drops so dramatically that it liberates materials and structures previously constrained by crash safety logic. The passenger’s view direction no longer needs to follow the direction of travel. The body of the car doesn’t need to treat every occupant as an identical unit to be protected the same way. This is where the Counterpoint concept gets its name and its actual design logic, because the two rows are treated as fundamentally separate experiential zones with different enclosures, different postures, and different relationships to the outside world.

Designer: Seonmyeong Woo

The front row, called Open Window, uses a mono-volume form and a lying-down posture. The windshield is fully glazed and doubles as an AR surface, so the occupant reclines and looks upward through the transparency of the forward section of the car. It reads spatially like an open sky capsule, an almost observatory-like relationship to the environment outside. The rear row, called Private Wall, is a notchback configuration with an opaque body section that creates a large, enclosed private space. The visual language here references the customizable wall that appears in Woo’s moodboards, something closer to a room than a seat. The tension between those two conditions, the transparent front and the opaque rear, is where the exterior form actually comes from. It is not decoration; it is the literal expression of the interior split.

The sketches and ideation process documented in the portfolio show Woo working through the problem of where to place windows and walls across dozens of iterations. Several rejected directions used conventional side window apertures that created visual continuity between rows, which would have defeated the concept’s core argument. The final direction draws a hard material boundary along the body at roughly the B-pillar zone, with the front half clad in glassy, translucent surfaces and the rear half wrapped in the kind of opaque, sculpted body you’d find on a premium notchback. The wheels are covered by enclosed turbine-style rims that give the exterior a sealed, monolithic quality, which reinforces the idea that this is a vehicle you disappear into rather than one you drive.

Interior ideation shows rotating and sliding seat mechanisms for the first row alongside a projecting seat configuration that allows the reclining posture without compromising ingress. The renders show the cabin upholstered in a saturated cobalt blue with carbon-weave floor surfaces, giving the inside a deliberately product-forward quality that sits between automotive and industrial design. The gullwing-style opening panels that expose both rows from above in the hero overhead render are clearly concept-specific theater, but they communicate the spatial relationship between the zones clearly in a way a plan view never could. The exterior renderings in lifestyle environments, a pre-dawn forest road, a wet urban expressway at night, show a car that reads as a single coherent object from the outside while containing two completely different spatial logics inside. That is the counterpoint of the title: not contradiction, but controlled contrast between two things that share a structure but operate independently of each other.

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This Concept Shoe Looks Like a Sports Car Melted Onto Your Foot

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Car brands dabble in lifestyle merchandise all the time, and most of it follows a predictable formula: slap a logo on a jacket, maybe a watch, and call it brand extension. Footwear collaborations exist, too, but they rarely go further than embroidering a grille badge onto an existing sneaker. This Alfa Romeo-inspired concept shoe takes a different approach, asking what happens when automotive design is treated not as decoration but as a structural principle.

The answer turns out to look a bit like a futuristic slipper, which is either its most interesting quality or its most confounding one, depending on your expectations. The upper is a soft, seamless white shell that pulls over the foot more like a sock than a traditional shoe, with almost no visible fastenings, stitching, or hardware. That minimal surface exists to let the midsole do all the work visually, and the midsole is doing quite a lot.

Designer: Haamed Ansari

That red base is the conceptual core of the whole project. Rendered in high-gloss red, it wraps from heel to toe in a continuous form that borrows the surface logic of automotive body panels, where lines are load-bearing transitions between volumes, not decorative additions. A single glossy band sweeps diagonally across the lateral side before tapering into the toe, much like a racing stripe that has been folded into three-dimensional geometry.

Where the red midsole meets the white upper, a narrow grey seam line functions almost like a panel gap. Car designers use exactly this kind of negative space to separate body sections and give each component its own visual weight. Without it, the shoe would read as a simple two-tone colorblock. With it, the shoe looks assembled from distinct parts that happen to meet with precision, which is a different thing entirely and a far more considered one.

Seen head-on, the silhouette edges surprisingly close to a Japanese tabi shoe, the way the upper pulls cleanly away from a defined sole structure and wraps the foot rather than lacing or strapping around it. The proportions are quite different, but the underlying logic feels shared. Where the tabi’s separation is rooted in traditional craft and function, this concept’s version is purely formal, a visual argument about soft material against rigid geometry.

The ideation sketches make clear that the final form is a significant restraint from where the concept began. Earlier iterations pushed into armored, aggressive territory with angular protrusions and forms that read more like racing boots from a science fiction film. The decision to pare that down into something closer to a loafer-boot hybrid is either a maturation of the idea or a softening of it, and whether that calm reads as confidence or compromise is the question the final render quietly leaves open.

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Storyteller Overland turn 4×4 Grenadier into ‘Grand Bohemian camper’ with pop-top roof and off-grid capabilities

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There are very few 4×4 SUVs that have what it takes to become capable adventure camper vans. One of them is the INEOS Grenadier, which Alabama-based Storyteller Overland has transformed into a customized camping rig that any all-terrain adventurer would want to hop into.

Called the Grand Bohemian, this global expedition vehicle is one of the finest builds to come out of Storyteller’s foundry. The company notes that the Grand Bohemian is not a traditional Class RV, though it does fit within RV licensing and classification. At the same time, the micro-camper’s body and construction allow it to go places most other RVs simply can’t.

Designer: Storyteller Overland

Unless you have the Grenadier in the Bohemian avatar, the most you can do with it when you’re planning an overnight stay in it is to outfit it with a rooftop tent. With the Grand Bohemian, the SUV platform finds a new life. Besides its daily driver image, the Grenadier is designed for long stays in the untrodden paths you have reached in your ride. For the same, the RVIA-certified Grand Bohemian is a fully integrated camping rig meant for overlanding with a comfortable interior and beefed-up exterior. The visible difference is the Alu-Cab pop-top roof tent, which adds a sleeping loft to the camper along with standing height inside the vehicle. This difference is complemented by the convenient living environment created inside the Grenadier.

To be showcased for the first time to the adventurer community at the Overland Expo So-Cal, the Grand Bohemian is powered by a BMW 3.0L engine, which features an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission providing the power and precision to go anywhere. When you reach the destination, you can pull out an installed 270-degree shadow awning and expand the outdoor living space for your convenience.

When you climb into the back of the vehicle, after your long day, you will be confronted by a thoughtfully crafted interior featuring warm textures. The space with the galley and living area is designed for a good time and long conversations. The rare seats of the Grenadier are replaced with a full galley and a lounge here: the kitchen is provided with an induction cooktop, a fridge and freezer combo, a fold-down prep and dining table, and a sink. The living area opposite it comprises an L-shaped leather bench, which stretches out to double as a sleeping space for one.

The Storyteller Overland has outfitted the Grand Bohemian with a 5.4-kilowatt-hour battery, 30-amp shore power, and up to 400 watts of solar panels. The camper is backed up by a 2,000W inverter and features a gas-powered hydronic system to manage the heat and hot water. The Bohemian has a composting toilet and is provided with 10.5-gallon freshwater tank and a 4-gallon grey water tank. If you are interested, you can reserve your adventure ride for $198,888 now.

    

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This $99 Water Jet Remotely Cleans Your Car’s Backup Camera Without You Leaving Your Seat

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Reverse driving accounts for just 1% of all driving time, yet it’s responsible for roughly 25% of all accidents. A dirty backup camera in winter, mud season, or on dusty country roads is not a hypothetical inconvenience but a genuine safety liability, one that most drivers have resigned themselves to either living with or solving by stepping out of the car every time. Mike Klein, a Vermont-based tinkerer with a characteristically no-nonsense approach to annoying problems, got fed up enough to build a solution in his garage. What started as a Ziploc-bag-and-zip-tie prototype strapped to his license plate has turned into the Lens Lizard, a compact, self-contained, remote-controlled backup camera washer that just hit Kickstarter and has absolutely run away with its funding goal.

The concept is beautifully blunt. Lens Lizard mounts behind your license plate, sandwiched discreetly between the plate and the bumper using your car’s existing screw holes. No drilling, no wiring, no running tubing through door gaps or under trim panels. The whole install takes under five minutes with a standard screwdriver, and once it’s on, it’s invisible. The unit itself houses a fluid reservoir, a battery pack, and a high-pressure nozzle that you aim at your camera once during setup and then never have to touch again. When your backup camera gets caked in snow/ice or road salt on a grey January morning, or buried under a slush splatter from the truck overtaking you on a Vermont highway, you press a wireless remote button from inside the car and a jet of washer fluid blasts the lens clean. Sort of like a lizard or a chameleon striking its prey with a sharp, swift flick of its tongue. Except this time, it’s a concentrated jet of soapy water. Maybe a Pokémon reference would work better but I don’t want Nintendo’s lawyers sending me a cease and desist.

Designer: Mike Klein

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $149.99 ($50.99 off) Hurry! Only 5 days left.

The engineering philosophy here is aggressively practical. Klein explicitly designed the Lens Lizard for Vermont winters, which means sub-zero temperatures, aggressive road salting, heavy snow, and the kind of freeze-thaw cycling that destroys lesser materials. The housing is sealed and built from automotive-grade materials, and the battery and fluid reservoir are sized to last four-plus months between refills and recharges, meaning you top everything up roughly once per season.

Maintenance is a non-event: open the latch, refill with washer fluid, charge via USB-C, close it back up. Klein’s origin story is worth noting too, because it gives the product a satisfying internal logic. He tried hydrophobic lens covers (they peeled), ceramic coatings (they did essentially nothing), and eventually decided to just build a scaled-down windshield washer system for his license plate. The first prototype was, by his own admission, ridiculous. But it worked, and that was enough to tell him the idea had legs.

Lens Lizard works with any vehicle where the backup camera sits above the license plate, which covers 99% of cars on the road, pickup trucks very much included. The product ships with assorted license plate screws to handle different fastener sizes, and the adjustable nozzle lets you dial in the spray angle for your specific camera position during initial setup. After that, the unit lives its entire life tucked behind the plate, completely out of sight. The wireless remote is puck-shaped and lives wherever you keep it in the cabin, a glove box, a cupholder, the center console.

The Lens Lizard starts at just $99 for the entire kit as an early bird discount off its $149 price tag. A dual bundle costs $189 if you’ve got two cars, and all bundles include the Lens Lizard unit, a wireless remote, a battery pack, and an assortment of screws to help you install the gizmo on your car. Given its specific design (and that every nation has a different license plate), the Lens Lizard only ships to the US and Canada for now, although I’m sure a more universal version is in the works. Production is slated to begin in April 2026, with shipping to backers planned for May. For drivers in cold-weather states, high-dust regions, or anywhere that sees serious road grime, it’s a hard value proposition to argue with. Certain premium vehicles have had integrated camera washers for years, quietly tucked into the bumper plumbing. Klein has simply figured out how to give everyone else the same result for under a hundred bucks, no dealer visit required.

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $149.99 ($50.99 off) Hurry! Only 5 days left.

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Rivian Just Launched Its Own Version of BMW M, and It’s Called RAD (Rivian Adventure Department)

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Meet RAD, short for Rivian Adventure Department, which is either a very clever name or a very brave one. In practical terms, it is Rivian’s newly formalized performance and development group. The team takes its trucks and SUVs into demanding events, learns what breaks, what grips, what flies, and channels those lessons into future products and features. It has been operating inside Rivian for years without a formal name. Think of it as Rivian’s version of BMW M or Toyota GR, except its proving ground is desert rallies and frozen lakes rather than the Nurburgring.

Rivian unveiled RAD at the 2026 FAT Ice Race in Big Sky, Montana, which feels like the correct setting for a division built around speed, control, and chaos management. FAT stands for Fahren auf Eis, German for “driving on ice,” and the event mixes vintage cars, modern performance machines, and now, 1,025-horsepower electric SUVs. The quad-motor R1S came in second on RAD’s debut, a solid first result. The bigger story is what RAD signals about where Rivian is heading. The company had the adventure image locked down already, and it now wants a firm grip on performance too, seemingly content to make that argument sideways on ice.

Designer: Rivian

RAD’s first deliverable for actual owners is the RAD Tuner, and it is more substantive than a typical software feature drop. It gives quad-motor R1S and R1T owners on Gen 2 hardware touch sliders to build custom drive modes across more than 10 powertrain and suspension variables, including power output, torque bias, stability control intervention, and brake regeneration. Two presets come built in: Desert Rally, developed from Rebelle Rally data, and Hill Climb, shaped by Pikes Peak runs. Both modes came from a team driving a 1,025-horsepower EV through punishing terrain and noting what actually worked. That feedback loop between competition and production software is what separates a real performance division from a badge on a brochure.

Speculation around RAD-badged production models is already building, and Rivian is doing nothing to quiet it. The R2, Rivian’s more compact SUV arriving in the second half of 2026, showed up at the FAT Ice Race dressed in full RAD livery, which is not a styling accident. The Drive has laid out the theory that quad-motor R1 models get rebranded R1 RAD, with a tri-motor R2 in the R2 RAD slot. When Rivian’s spokesperson was asked about the conspicuously missing R2 tri-motor from the launch lineup, the reply was “so much more to come” with an actual winking emoji. If RAD graduates to a production badge, Rivian enters the same conversation as the Ford Raptor, the Ram TRX, and every performance sub-brand that has figured out how to charge a premium for pushing factory hardware past its polite defaults.

The EV industry has spent years anchored to range figures and charging infrastructure debates, both necessary conversations, but ones that leave genuine enthusiasm largely unaddressed. Rivian is making the argument loudly that electric trucks can be athletic, competition-tested, and interesting to the crowd that wakes up on a Saturday morning wanting to do something dumb and fast. The RAD Tuner is a modest first chapter, but the direction is unambiguous. Performance divisions grounded in real competition data take years to build and are hard to fake from scratch. Rivian has that foundation in place.

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BYD Could Become Formula 1’s First Ever Chinese Team By 2027

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BYD sold 4.6 million new energy vehicles last year. It operates in over 100 countries. It builds its own batteries, motors, semiconductors, and power electronics from the ground up. And yet, in the parts of the world where it most desperately wants to grow, a significant chunk of car buyers still see it as the affordable Chinese option. That perception gap between what BYD actually is and what consumers in Europe and North America think it is has become the company’s single biggest strategic problem. Formula 1, according to a Bloomberg report published this week, might be BYD’s proposed solution. The company is reportedly exploring an entry into the world championship, either by acquiring an existing team or by building its own from scratch.

It would not be the first automaker to use motorsport as a brand perception lever. Hyundai was a budget car punchline before its WRC campaigns rewired how people thought about its engineering. Honda’s F1 run in the late 80s and 90s turned sensible commuters into a byword for high revving precision. BYD has the technical chops to tell a similar story, and F1’s 2026 regulations actually play to its strengths. Roughly half the power unit’s output now comes from an electric motor, a huge jump from previous seasons. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been openly courting a Chinese entry, confirming that talks with manufacturers have already happened. The financial hurdle is real, with annual costs pushing $500 million and Cadillac’s grid entry fee alone hitting $450 million, but BYD pulled in $86 billion in revenue last year. The money exists. The motive exists. And the regulatory window has never been more aligned.

Image Credits: @grandprix

The 2026 power unit regulations are what make BYD’s potential entry genuinely fascinating from an engineering standpoint. The MGU K now pumps out 350 kW, nearly triple the previous 120 kW figure, meaning the electric motor is responsible for roughly half of total power delivery to the rear wheels. The sport has also mandated advanced sustainable fuels and significantly increased battery capacity requirements. For context, most current F1 engine manufacturers outsource chunks of their electrical componentry or partner with specialist suppliers for battery cells and power electronics. BYD does none of that. It designs its own lithium iron phosphate battery chemistry, manufactures its own electric motor architectures, and fabricates its own semiconductor chips in house. That vertical integration, the same thing that lets BYD undercut competitors on price in the road car market, could translate into a fundamentally different approach to building an F1 power unit.

Think about what that means in practice. Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull Powertrains all develop their electrical systems with relatively traditional motorsport supplier chains. BYD would show up with an entirely self contained pipeline, from raw cell chemistry to finished power electronics, informed by producing millions of electric drivetrains a year at scale. Nobody in F1 has that kind of manufacturing feedback loop. Whether that actually produces a faster car is anyone’s guess, because high volume production efficiency and single lap bespoke performance are very different disciplines. But the potential for BYD to bring a novel engineering philosophy to the grid, one shaped by mass market EV development rather than wind tunnel obsession, is the kind of wildcard that makes the sport interesting. The last time someone brought a genuinely alien approach to F1 engine design was probably Honda’s split turbo concept in 2015, and that eventually won championships.

BYD also has something else that most F1 newcomers lack: a premium performance sub brand with an actual hypercar. The Yangwang U9 is a quad motor electric supercar that clocked a sub 7 minute Nurburgring Nordschleife lap, making it one of the fastest production cars to ever circle that track. It produces over 1,300 horsepower, uses BYD’s proprietary e4 platform with independent torque vectoring on all four wheels, and was reportedly tested at speeds north of 300 km/h. If BYD enters F1, Yangwang becomes the obvious brand to attach to the racing program, the same way Toyota runs its Le Mans effort under Gazoo Racing or Hyundai channels its WRC work through its N performance division. A Yangwang branded F1 entry would give BYD a clean separation between its mass market identity and its motorsport ambitions, while feeding technology back into its flagship performance car.

China’s track record in international single seater racing is worth acknowledging here, because it adds useful context to how hard this actually is. The team originally called China Racing joined Formula E in 2013 as the second team on the grid, won the inaugural Drivers’ Championship under the NIO banner with Nelson Piquet Jr. in 2015, and then proceeded to spend years stuck at the very back of the field. It got rebranded from NIO 333 to ERT, and was eventually sold to an American investment group that now runs it as Kiro Race Co. under a U.S. license. The one Chinese flagged team in electric motorsport lost its Chinese identity entirely. BYD entering F1 would carry the weight of that unfinished story, and the engineering credibility it brings to the table through its road car dominance would need to survive the brutal reality of competing against teams that have been doing this for decades.

Some AI generated concept renders have been making the rounds online, imagining a BYD liveried F1 car in a black, red, and white color scheme with the company’s angular logo across the sidepods. The renders are speculative, but one detail stands out: the Chinese flag painted onto the nose cone. That is a loaded visual choice, and a historically significant one in F1 terms. Alpine carries the French tricolore on its cars. Force India wore the Indian flag throughout its time on the grid. A BYD car flying the five starred red flag on its nose would frame this as a national arrival, a declaration that China’s biggest automaker is ready to compete at the highest level of global motorsport. BYD’s road car design language has been trending toward clean, sharp minimalism lately, so a livery built around deep red panels, exposed carbon weave, and restrained branding could actually cut through the visual clutter of an increasingly sponsor heavy grid. It would certainly look different from anything else out there.

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65 Hybrid catamaran depicts an evolutionary journey for VisionF Yachts

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We have a special affinity for catamarans, something you’ll recognize from our previous coverage. These marine beauties have an irresistible allure, whether it in a conceptualized rendering or a production-ready model like the 65 Hybrid unveiled by catamaran builder VisionF Yachts. The all-new model – chiefly designed by Tuzla, Istanbul-based builder, famous for its innovative power catamarans – is the company’s first foray into the sub-80-foot catamaran segment.

It’s an evolutionary journey for VisionF, which is particularly famous for its VisionF 80, VisionF 82, and VisionF 101 models. These are all 80-foot-plus power and fully electric catamarans offering a luxurious blend of comfort and performance. Scaling the same finesse to a smaller 62-foot form factor is not the only change heralding the proficiency of the 65 Hybrid, it’s also the new material used for its construction.

Designer: VisionF Yachts

Equipped with all the advanced technology and alternative power sources, the Vision 65 Hybrid catamaran is meticulously designed and crafted to provide an unparalleled experience at sea. With an overall length of 19m (62 feet), the catamaran features 30 feet beam, but sways from the usual aluminium construction reserved for VisionF cats. The model, instead, is built in GRP composite and is designed to provide efficiency and liveability of the highest order.

Despite the compactness, the 62-footer catamaran doesn’t compromise in the interiors department. The beam delivers space-defying standards. It allows a luxury accommodation for up to eight guests. This is arranged as four cabins with their own quarters for a crew of four. Designed for cruising, the living quarters also comprise a large salon, expansive glazing, and an interior flooded with natural lighting from all sides.

The 65 Hybrid, interestingly, is not only about style; it’s about substance as well. The catamaran is powered by 450 hp Volvo Penta D8-450 diesel engines and an electric powertrain. The latter comprises a pair of batteries, 101 kWh and 23 kWh capacities, charged primarily by 42 solar panels laid out on the rooftop, which helps run the electric catamaran silently.

Featuring an advanced energy management system, the 65 Hybrid hull has been created as a demo model for those willing to buy. It is a tangible idea of what the final product could be, even though the customers, VisionF says, have extensive flexibility. VisionF is open to exploring customization in technical configurations, layout, and finishes, if required. According to press information, 65 Hybrid catamaran is likely to go on sale in the months to come. If you’re interested, head over for a hands-on experience and order for your customized beauty now!

 

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Caterham Seven HWM Edition celebrates British racing heritage with a limited-run lightweight sports car

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Few sports cars have preserved the spirit of lightweight performance quite like the Caterham Seven. With its minimalist design and uncompromising focus on driving purity, the model has remained one of the most authentic expressions of classic British motoring. Now, the British manufacturer has introduced a special variant that celebrates a lesser-known but historically important racing story. Developed in collaboration with Hersham and Walton Motors (HWM), the Caterham Seven HWM Edition pays tribute to the small British team that once challenged Europe’s best on the Grand Prix stage.

HWM was founded in 1938 and built a reputation in the early post-war years as a determined independent racing constructor. Its most famous machine was the 1951 HWM-Alta single-seater, which achieved several international race victories and podium finishes during an era dominated by far larger teams. The car also played a role in motorsport history by giving legendary driver Sir Stirling Moss an early Formula 1 appearance. By creating the Seven HWM Edition, Caterham and HWM are celebrating that underdog spirit and the shared heritage of two British brands deeply rooted in racing culture.

Designer: Caterham and HWM

The limited-run model is inspired by the original HWM-Alta racer. Only 19 examples will be produced for the UK market, mirroring the exclusivity of historic racing specials and emphasizing the handcrafted nature of Caterham’s vehicles. Each car is finished in a distinctive HWM Green paint, a color digitally matched to the original 1951 race car. Exterior detailing reinforces the historical connection, with Alta-inspired side panel louvres, a bespoke nosecone grille, and suspension components such as the wishbones, anti-roll bar, and headlight brackets finished in Retro Grey. A centrally mounted chrome fuel filler cap and a special HWM Caterham nosecone badge further distinguish the model.

Inside the cockpit, the retro theme continues with a focus on craftsmanship and period-correct design cues. The dashboard features a hand-turned aluminum SuperSprint panel fitted with classic SMITHS chrome dials and a solid metal master cut-off switch. Drivers interact with the car through a polished wooden Moto-Lita quick-release steering wheel, while chrome-finished controls for the gear lever and handbrake add to the vintage racing aesthetic. The body-colored transmission tunnel enhances the bespoke feel, and buyers can choose between leather-trimmed seats or lightweight composite racing seats embroidered with the HWM logo. A numbered plaque on the passenger side of the dashboard marks each vehicle as “1 of 19,” underscoring its rarity.

Despite its historic inspiration, the Seven HWM Edition remains a thoroughly modern performance machine. The car is based on the Caterham Seven 420 platform and is powered by a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter Duratec four-cylinder engine producing around 210 horsepower. Paired with a five-speed manual gearbox and driving the rear wheels, the lightweight sports car delivers an impressive power-to-weight ratio of roughly 375 horsepower per ton. As a result, it can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 3.8 seconds and reach a top speed of approximately 136 miles per hour.

Prices for the Caterham Seven HWM Edition start at £57,990 (approximately $78,000), positioning it as an exclusive offering for enthusiasts who value both heritage and pure driving engagement.

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Alpine’s Wildest F1 Concept Car Concept Uses a Magnetic Levitation Cockpit to Protect Its Driver

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If Alpine’s 2026 season is about consolidation, about switching to Mercedes power units and clawing back from last place in the Constructors’ Championship, then HakHyeon Lee’s Alpine Horizon concept is the opposite impulse entirely. This is a designer throwing Alpine’s arrow logo onto a closed-cockpit hypercar with a magnetically levitating driver pod, wire-tethered to a chassis that borrows its DNA from Le Mans prototypes rather than anything on the F1 grid. Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto are busy trying to drag the real Alpine up the standings, but Lee’s concept lives in a universe where the brand already won everything and started experimenting with physics.

Alpine confirmed in February that it will withdraw from the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class after this season, ending a program that includes the A424’s maiden victory at Fuji in 2025. The historic Viry-Chatillon facility, home to Renault’s F1 engines for nearly 50 years, faces an uncertain future now that both the power unit program and the WEC effort are winding down. Lee’s Horizon arrives against that backdrop, a vision of Alpine as an endurance powerhouse while the real endurance team prepares for its final campaign with Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg, and Antonio Felix da Costa carrying the flag one last time.

Designer: HakHyeon Lee

The centerpiece of the Horizon is its magnetic levitation cockpit, and the idea is genuinely ambitious. Lee proposes using electromagnetic repulsion between rails on the chassis frame and magnetic devices in the cockpit pod to physically lift the driver compartment off the car’s body. The claimed benefit is a ride that absorbs sudden acceleration forces and jump sections in ways conventional suspension cannot, essentially decoupling the driver’s experience from the violence at the contact patches below. High-strength wire tethers prevent the cockpit from separating entirely, acting as a mechanical leash for what is otherwise a floating capsule.

From a safety perspective, the Horizon’s fully enclosed cockpit speaks to a debate that has followed Formula 1 since the Halo became mandatory in 2018. The FIA tested closed canopy designs before settling on the titanium Halo, and their reasoning came down to driver extraction: a closed cockpit with more structural complexity could trap a driver in a burning car. Romain Grosjean’s fiery 2020 Bahrain crash validated that thinking, with the Frenchman escaping largely unassisted while the Halo deflected the barrier from his head. But Lee’s Horizon sidesteps this entirely because closed cockpits are already standard in endurance racing, where LMDh and LMH cars run enclosed driver cells as a matter of course.

And that’s the critical distinction here. The Horizon shares almost nothing with a modern F1 car. Current F1 machines are narrow, open-wheeled, open-cockpit designs with exposed suspension and aggressive front wings dictated by FIA regulations. The Horizon sits low and wide with massive wheel arches that swallow the tires, a long rear overhang housing a substantial diffuser, and a front splitter that could double as a snowplow. Its silhouette reads as a Toyota GR010 or Porsche 963 cousin, filtered through Lee’s smooth, organic surfacing language where the canopy melts into the car’s spine without a single harsh panel gap.

Inside the cockpit, Lee imagines gimbal-mounted seats designed for what he calls “weightless racing,” working in concert with the floating pod to keep the driver’s body stable under extreme forces. It is a layered isolation system: the cockpit floats on magnets, the seat pivots on gimbals within it, and the driver theoretically experiences something closer to stillness while the car battles the track surface below. Batteries housed in the chassis power the entire magnetic levitation system, and cutaway views show them positioned low for center-of-gravity optimization.

Alpine’s real motorsport situation makes a concept like this hit differently. The F1 team finished dead last in the 2025 Constructors’ Championship, and Flavio Briatore’s stated ambition for 2026 is a modest climb to P6 on Mercedes customer power. The WEC team is running its farewell season before the Hypercar program shuts down permanently, with the Viry-Chatillon workforce of 300-plus employees facing reassignment or redundancy. Lee’s Horizon exists in none of that reality, and the gap between aspiration and circumstance is exactly what makes automotive concept design so compelling.

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This Custom BMW R 1300 R Superhooligan Pays Tribute To 50 Years Since Its First Daytona Victory

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Fifty years ago this month, a team of engineers and riders rolled three air-cooled German boxer twins into Daytona’s paddock and lined them up against a field of screaming Japanese inline-fours that everyone assumed would bury them. Butler & Smith, BMW’s US importer at the time, had hired an aerospace engineer named Udo Gietl to prepare the R 90 S race bikes, a man who had previously worked for NASA and on Polaris submarines before turning his attention to motorcycle tuning. Gietl shortened the boxer’s horizontal cylinders to buy lean angle clearance, fitted titanium connecting rods, and replaced the stock twin rear shocks with a custom Koni monoshock adapted from a Formula 1 car.

What the bikes lacked in horsepower against the Kawasakis and Ducatis, they more than recovered in stability and handling. On March 6, 1976, Butler & Smith rider Steve McLaughlin crossed the line first in the inaugural AMA Superbike Championship Series race, with teammate Reg Pridmore a photo finish behind him. A third Butler & Smith bike, ridden by Gary Fisher, had led for several laps before a gearbox failure ended what would have been a storybook 1-2-3 sweep. BMW won that race, Pridmore won the championship at season’s end, and the Teutonic touring machine that Cycle World had nicknamed a “stone axe” had beaten the field at its own game.

Designer: BMW Motorrad

BMW Motorrad has now built the R 1300 R Superhooligan to mark that half-century anniversary, and if there is a more appropriate way to honor a chapter of racing history, it is hard to imagine what it would be. The one-off custom was assembled by a small internal team from the BMW Motorrad Custom Speed Shop, including designer Andreas Martin and color designer Theresa Stukenbrock, working from a stock R 1300 R as the foundation. The orange over carbon livery on the finished bike is an unmistakable nod to McLaughlin’s #83 R 90 S, with the race number itself relocated to a front number board mounted in place of a headlamp, a detail that communicates the build’s intent without any ambiguity.

The Ilmberger carbon bodywork wraps the boxer’s cylinders so completely that the motor reads almost like a monoblock, dissolving the traditional visual separation between engine and frame that defines most naked bikes. Blue-anodized fork legs on the extended Wilbers USD front end and matching blue frame rails on the aluminum rear subframe pull the accent color directly from McLaughlin’s 1976 livery, with additional blue brake calipers sourced from the BMW M 1000 RR superbike reinforcing the connection across the front axle.

The R 1300 R is already a serious machine in standard form, producing 145 hp and 110 lb-ft of torque from its 1,300 cc twin-cylinder boxer, but the Superhooligan’s performance upgrades go further than cosmetics. The Wilbers fork has been lengthened by 30 mm to increase lean angle clearance, a modification that directly echoes the cylinder-shortening work Gietl did to the original R 90 S for the same purpose. The M 1000 RR carbon front wheel improves steering response and reduces unsprung weight, while the Akrapovic titanium exhaust system with its carbon end silencer saves mass at the rear and adds the kind of mechanical bark that a build like this demands. CNC footpegs and fully adjustable Advik levers complete the track-ready ergonomic package. With all of it together, BMW rates the Superhooligan at 171 mph. There is no headlamp, which makes it ineligible for road registration, and while that is a minor tragedy, the bike was always going to the track rather than the street.

McLaughlin’s legacy extends well beyond that single Daytona photo finish. As the AMA’s riders’ representative through the early 1970s, he was the primary force behind getting Superbike racing elevated to national championship status in the United States, working alongside promoters and publishers to build the infrastructure that made the 1976 series possible. He later became the central figure in creating the World Superbike Championship, which launched in 1988 and remains one of motorcycle racing’s premier international series today. The AMA inducted him into its Hall of Fame, noting that without McLaughlin’s organizational work, the racing landscape the Superhooligan now celebrates might not have existed at all.

BMW Motorrad brand ambassador Nate Kern is racing the Superhooligan in round one of the Mission Foods Super Hooligan National Championship at Daytona this year, putting a competition-spec descendant of McLaughlin’s race-winning machine back on the same circuit where it all started. During the Daytona 200 weekend, the Superhooligan was displayed in the paddock alongside the original 1976 Butler & Smith R 90 S race bikes, with McLaughlin, Pridmore, Gietl, and Fisher’s daughters Heidi and Kimberly all present for the occasion. Few anniversaries in motorsport get marked with this much honesty.

The post This Custom BMW R 1300 R Superhooligan Pays Tribute To 50 Years Since Its First Daytona Victory first appeared on Yanko Design.