When Honda lifted the cover from their FC Sport concept, someone behind me let out an involuntary "whoa!" We weren't expecting anything as extreme as this when Honda veep Dan Bonawitz teased the concept's unveiling as "something to think about and hope for."
This sports car exercise by Honda's Southern California design center was spearheaded by designer Jason Wilbur, who claims inspiration from "hexagonal cellular structures" superimposed on a more organic form. The result is stunning -- the FC Sport is radical, like a Civic Si Transformer whose robot form is a stormtrooper.
Pictures don't do this concept justice, but I snapped a bunch of them so that your mind can try to get around it.
The FC Sport seats its driver centrally, flanked by two passengers a la McLaren F1, and houses its fuel cell drivetrain behind the cockpit in the so-called "pod" aft of the rear wheels. And its doors are of the double-hinged scissor variety that open like the McLaren's do.
To our eyes the pod looks like a distended anus. But in a good way, if that's possible.
It is challenging and forward-looking. Risky, even. Whether you find it stunning or an eyesore, the FC Sport represents the kind of design thinking that should be applauded.
The rear three-quarter portion of the FC Sport reminds us of the 1977 Lamborghini Silhouette pictured below:
Jason Kavanagh, Engineering Editor
lvranger says:
03:19 PM, 11/19/08
Lop off that hemorrhoid and where do I sign?
wgtp says:
07:33 PM, 11/19/08
Looks like there is room for a rocket engine or warp drive back there, or maybe a parachute. Oh wait, it's a 5 mile per hour bumper.
estreka says:
08:05 PM, 11/19/08
Push! Push! It's crowning!
Except for the ghastly rear end, lookin' good.
ateixeira says:
11:00 AM, 11/20/08
I love it. Looks great.
They should build an Insight coupe and make it look like this.
It's very concept-ish, though. I don't think that's actual glass, but rather black paint.