Never ones to turn down a chance to sing about vehicles, we can’t help but take a little inspiration from Zager and Evans: "In the year 2025, if man is still alive, if race cars can survive, what will we find?" The Los Angeles Auto Show Design Challenge provides a glimpse, and it’s freaking rad.

The annual contest allows the auto industry’s most creative minds to exercise their genius without concern for bean counters or engineers. This year saw them designing alternative-fuel race cars of the distant future, which in this case refers to that far off time 17 years from now when the world’s oil reserves are depleted, electric cars glide on the crumbled remains of our roads and all of Angelina Jolie’s children are old enough to drive.

As is so often the case when designers let their imaginations run wild, the cars they’ve come up with are as unlikley as they are futuristic. But that doesn’t make them any less impressive. Check ’em out and vote for your favorite.

Audi R25 Audi Design Center California

Built for the inaugural Los Angeles round of the American Le Mans Series 2025, Audi’s electric R25 looks like the latest offering from Schick and hopes to cut curves just as closely. Like Hot Wheels’ G-Force, it races upside down. Like socks on a wool carpet, it charges from wireless electricity. Ouch.

BMW Hydrogen Powered Salt Flat Racer BMW Group DesignworksUSA

We’ll admit this one is our favorite. A Rauschenberg-like combine of found objects, BMW has built a hydrogen car out of (ironically enough) oil barrels and other reused items. We don’t know how the ASPCA or PETA will feel about the addition of the goldfish at the tailpipe to check emissions, but any car that evokes the belly tank lakesters of the ’50s and ’60s is OK in our book.

GM Chaparral Volt General Motors Advanced Design, California

Let’s groove tonight. GM says this concept is meant to evoke the elements of Earth, Wind and Fire. While the tail fin is vaguely reminiscent of Phillip Bailey‘s hairdo, GM is talking about momentum capture regeneration, turbine extractors and PV panels. It’s also betting it survives long enough to see 2025, a bet not all would take.

Honda The Great Race 2025 Honda Research and Development

Honda is such a showoff. Sure, it’s an expert in marine, automotive, robotic and jet technologies — but do they have to combine them all in one vehicle? Let’s hope this Great Race ends up with a pie fight as cool as the old Blake Edwards movie and Honda’s Great Race team fares better than its F1 team.

Mazda KAAN Mazda Research and Development

If all goes according to Mazda’s plan, the E1 electric race series will suffer the Wrath of KAAN. Of course, that’s depends on California resurfacing roads with a "sub-level electro-conductive polymer that powers the electric cars of the modern world." Come 2025, California will be lucky to fill in potholes on the 405. KAAN looks like one of those back massagers you can buy at a kiosk in the mall, but it’s still prettier than the new Miata.

Mitsubishi Motors MMR25 Mitsubishi Research and Design of North America

Mitsubishi brings an "8×4" to the table, with active aerodynamics to maximize handling and omnidirectional wheels that keep the car moving forward regardless of where it’s pointed. We fear it’ll as much an exercise in futility as piloting the four-wheel-steering shopping carts at Ikea

Mercedes Formula Zero Racer Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design of North America

The economic downturn of 17 years previous didn’t affect the wealthy gentlemen racers buying Formula Zero racers. The "luxury racer" combines "the thrill of Formula One, the track dynamics of the bobsled or luge, and the grace and efficiency of yacht racing," Mercedes says. Sadly, it also incorporates the look of a rollerskate.

Toyota LeMans Racer Calty Design Research, Inc.

With a nose like Barbara Streisand, this shape-shifting, hydrogen-burning Toyota gets narrower while accelerating to 350 mph on a long straightaway. It’s got a robotic co-pilot, a virtual reality guidance system (huh?) and photovoltaic cells so it doesn’t need refueling during the 24 hours of LeMans. Except at night.

Volkswagen Bio Runner Volkswagen/Audi Design Center California

The Legolicious BioRunner eschews a steering wheel in favor of direct electrical connections to the driver’s hands and feet. Proving they live in Los Angeles, VW’s designers include an "arial reconnaissance drone" — what the rest of us might call a helicopter — that provides the driver a live video feed of the car’s every move. We suspect that VW will recruit former COPS "stars" to pilot the biofuel-burning car, as they always seem to perform amazing vehicular feats when the copter is following them.

Images courtesy of Design Los Angeles. See many, many more here.



