LOS ANGELES — Honda surprised everyone here at the L.A. Auto Show today when it rolled out a radical three-seat supercar concept vehicle that runs on hydrogen, a fuel fast becoming a footnote in automotive history.

Honda stands almost alone in clinging to the belief here at the auto show in so vocally proclaiming hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and the FC Sport that made its worldwide premiere today places the automaker firmly at the forefront of fuel cell vehicle design. Although the FC is nothing more than a styling exercise that will almost certainly never see production, that slick bodywork is the only thing revolutionary about it. All of the technology beneath the skin already exists in the FCX Clarity fuel cell sedan currently being leased to select customers in Southern California.

The Clarity raised the bar for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles when it appeared at last year’s show, and Honda VP Dan Bonawitz says the company wants to show that alt fuels and zero-emissions motoring can "stir the soul." The car looks like nothing Honda’s ever built before, which is exactly the point.

"People who love sports cars will still have a reason to love in a hydrogen-powered future," Bonawitz said.

Honda turned loose the designers at its Advanced Design Studio and told them to make something amazing. What they came up with, lead designer Jason Wilbur said, "speaks in our bold voice to our racing heritage and our love of building clean, efficient vehicles that are fun to drive."

Wilbur told Wired.com that he and the rest of the design crew weren’t influenced by any other cars, but it’s hard to look at the front end and not see the Bugatti Veryron or look at the side profile and not see a Lamborghini — hell, the FC Sport even has scissor doors like a Murcielago. That back end is a mess, though. Honda says the hexagonal shape was influenced by cellular structure, but to us it looks like a vision of the future circa 1958.

The driver sits in the middle of the car, as in the McLaren F1, while two passengers sit directly behind. The fuel cell stack is behind the back seats, while the battery pack is kept low in the middle of the car and the electric motor is just before the rear axle. Honda says most of the mass is kept between the axles to improve handling, but we’ll have to take its word for it because the car doesn’t actually run — it’s basically a full-size model.

Good thing, too, because there’s nowhere in downtown L.A. to fuel.



POST UPDATED 12:05 a.m. Nov. 20 and 8:30 p.m. Nov. 21.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com